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Hot and Cold Again

Dear list,

I just love a good debate. A posting from Bernd quoting Monica below:

First of all, it is important to discriminate between different types of
extraterrestrial visitor. Meteorites are natural objects that survive
their fall to Earth from space, and are recovered. They are not
radioactive, and are almost always COLD when they land.

Also from the excellent book by Harry Y. McSween, Jr. " Meteorites and
Their Parent Planets"  in regards to the Wethersfield, Connecticut fall
Nov. 8 1982, the family called the fire department fearing an explosion
had occurred. upon finding the grapefruit sized meteorite the fire
marshal later reported the meteorite was COLD to the touch.

McSween also states that the stones have been stored in the deep freeze
of space from the beginning and that the passage through the atmosphere
does not significantly effect their interiors (after all the study of
meteorites is the study of unaltered to highly altered parts of the
solar system) and that heat conduction in the atmospheric transit is too
fast/short for heat absorption..

He further sites the Coby, Wisconsin and the Dharmasala, India falls as
reported to FROST over quickly and both fell on hot summer days. Not to
say that the fusion crust on some specimen might not be warm to the
touch such as Noblesville, Indiana fall.

Also Nininger also stated that he himself interviewed a number of people
who were able to get to a fall shortly after its impact and found the
specimen to be COLD or with frost from the moisture content from the
surrounding area.

BTW I highly recommend McSween's new book and am enjoying reading it
myself at this time. Much updated information, new pictures and some
indications as to where some of the meteorites we have might have come
from. Best!

--AL

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