Most bodies in the solar system with a visible solid surface exhibit craters. On Earth we see very few
because geological processes such as weathering and erosion soon destroy the obvious evidence. On bodies with no atmosphere, such as Mercury or the Moon, craters are everywhere. Without going into detail, there is strong evidence of a period of intense cratering in the solar system that ended about 3.9 billion years ago. Since that time cratering appears to have continued at a much slower and fairly uniform rate.
The cause of the craters is impacts by comets and asteroids. Most asteroids follow simple circular orbits between the planets Mars and Jupiter, but all of these asteroids are perturbed, occasionally by each other and more regularly and dramatically by Jupiter. As a result some find themselves in orbits that cross that of Mars or even Earth. Comets on the other hand follow highly elongated orbits that often come close to Earth or other major bodies to begin with. These orbits are greatly affected if they come anywhere near Jupiter.
Over the eons every moon and planet finds itself in the wrong place in its orbit at the wrong time and suffers the insult of a major impact.
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