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Mercurian and Venusian Meteorites

Hello Steve and list,

Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars are differentiated, once entirely melted
bodies. Chondrules and chondritic material could not have survived the
melting to be blasted from the surface of these planets. It is possible,
however, that chondritic material that formed in the areas of these
planets, but was not accreted into the planets survived and still exists
in the solar system. I believe the current thinking on E chondrites is
that they MAY have formed within Mercury's orbit or possibly on a
"proto-Mercury" prior to complete melting, not that they are from
Mercury itself.

Gene

Steven Excell wrote:
> 
> Hello List,
> 
> Ron opens up an interesting avenue of inquiry.  Right now, there is not a
lot of evidence that chondrules/chondrites formed anyplace else in the
solar system other than within the main asteroid belt. So, finding a
Mercurian or Venusian chondrite would be truly exciting.  Such a find
would
rule out some chondrule-formation models that rely upon solar flares or
Jovian resonance's as the means of heating only the region (2-4 AU) of
the
asteroid belt to precisely the right temperature for short periods of
time
to form chondrules.
>