May 1, 2022
The surfaces of Mercury and the Moon are covered with impact craters. This is primarily because neither of these bodies have a substantial atmosphere, which means meteors hurtling toward them frequently impact the surface instead of burning up. Earth however is protected from many smaller impacts by our atmosphere. When a meteor enters the atmosphere, they burn up and create what we call “shooting stars”.
As neither Mercury (left) nor the Moon (right) have an atmosphere, the surfaces of both these bodies are covered in impact craters widely ranging in size. Image credit left: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Arizona State University/Carnegie Institution of Washington, right: Thomas Bresson
