Everest, however. In photos, you can see that the Moon is battered from asteroids and meteors, but the Earth has been hit but isn't battered. Is this because of the Earth's atmosphere? Why does the Moon have no atmosphere? You are asking two related questions, so let me tackle them in sequence. First, you asked why the Moon is covered with impact craters from meteors and asteroids, while the Earth seems to be much luckier in that respect. You answered part of that question yourself: the Earth has an atmosphere, which protects its surface from meteors up to a moderate size. These meteors evaporate upon entry into the atmosphere and can be seen as "shooting stars." Larger meteors, though, reach the ground. There are quite a few famous meteor craters on Earth, for example, the Meteor Crater near Flagstaff, Arizona, or the Noerdlinger Ries, an almost perfectly circular valley in Germany. Admittedly, these are fewer craters than are found on the Moon, and most of the Earth's craters are much younger. In fact, the Earth was pelted with many impacts at the same time when the Moon was hit so badly, up to about 3.5 billion years ago. Why don't we find these craters anymore on Earth? The answer to this part of the question is that the Earth is geologically active and has a severe climate, which leads to hefty erosion by water, ice and wind over the long time scale of billions of years. In other words, the