  Immediately after their formation, the terrestrial planets experienced
intense impact bombardment by comets, leftover planetesimals from primary
accretion, and asteroids. This temporal interval in solar system evolution,
termed late accretion, thermally and chemically modified solid planetary
surfaces and may have impeded the emergence of life on the Hadean Earth. The
sources and tempo of late accretion are, however, vague. Here, we present a
timeline that relates variably retentive radiometric ages from asteroidal
meteorites, to new dynamical models of late accretion that invokes giant planet
migration. Reconciliation of the geochronological data with dynamical models
shows that giant planet migration immediately leads to an intense 30 Myr influx
of comets to the entire solar system. The absence of whole-sale crustal reset
ages after 4450 Ma for the most resilient chronometers from Earth, Moon, Mars,
Vesta and various meteorite parent bodies confines the onset of giant planet
migration to no later than ca. 4480 Ma. Waning impacts from planetesimals,
asteroids (and a minor cometary component) continue to strike the inner planets
through a protracted monotonic decline in impactor flux; this is in agreement
with predictions from crater chronology. Amended global 3-D thermal analytical
bombardment models derived from our new impact mass-production functions show
that persistent niches for prebiotic chemistry on the early Hadean Earth could
endure late accretion for at least the last 4400 Myr.
