Quoting Erich Kummerfeld <elk03@...>:
> I don't know for certain but I would hold the moon's heavily cratered surface
> as evidence that it may be playing/has played/will continue to play a role in
> filtering out large cosmic bodies that come flying our way.
_Every_ major body in the Solar System with a surface that's not changed much
over the last four billion years has about equally cratered surfaces. It's just
the standard look for objects who do not periodically redesign their surfaces.
Andreas