An early giant planet instability recorded in asteroidal meteorites

Giant planet migration appears widespread among planetary systems in our Galaxy. However, the timescales of this process, which reflect the underlying dynamical mechanisms, are not well constrained, even within the Solar System. As planetary migration scatters smaller bodies onto intersecting orbits, it would have resulted in an epoch of enhanced bombardment in the Solar System’s asteroid belt. Here, to accurately and precisely quantify the timescales of migration, we interrogate thermochronologic data from asteroidal meteorites, which record the thermal imprint of energetic collisions. We present a database of 40K–40Ar system ages from chondrite meteorites and evaluate it with an asteroid-scale thermal code coupled to a Markov chain Monte Carlo inversion. Simulations require bombardment to reproduce the observed age distribution and identify a bombardment event beginning $$11.{3}_{-6.6}^{+9.5}\, {\mathrm{Myr}}$$ after the Sun formed (50% credible interval). Our results associate a giant planet instability in our Solar System with the dissipation of the gaseous protoplanetary disk. Radiometric cooling ages of chondrite meteorites record asteroid belt bombardment beginning approximately 11 million years after the formation of the Solar System, indicating an episode of giant planet migration at that time.