The geologic history of Earth's Moon has been divided into five broad time periods, or systems. From oldest to youngest, these are pre-Nectarian, Nectarian, Imbrian, Eratosthenian, and Copernican. These systems are defined by the number of impact craters on the ground surface (more craters = older surface) correlated to the absolute ages determined for the lunar rock samples returned to Earth by the U. S. Apollo missions and unpiloted Soviet Luna missions. The Nectarian system extends from 3. 9 billion to 3. 85 billion years ago.