[meteorite-list] hot meteorites

From: Sharkkb8_at_aol.com <Sharkkb8_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Apr 22 09:41:09 2004
Message-ID: <39.108bb275.27b9c583_at_aol.com>

 << There are too many reports of meteorites being hot to the touch and
singing objects to say they are cold when they fall...........There was even
a stone from the Portales Valley fall with a piece of plastic melted to it
after landing on a plastic object. >>

I would think that the exterior of the stone would be hot at the moment of
impact, but that the interior 99.9% of the rock, which is still essentially
deep-space-frozen at that point, would cool that thin exterior down extremely
quickly (contraction cracks?). It would seem plausible enough that the
Portales rock could melt some plastic upon immediate contact with it, but I'd
bet that the chance of someone picking up a fresh fall virtually on impact,
like the Portales/plastic contact would have to have been, is highly
unlikely. It seems to me that the uniformity of reports of falls being cold
to the touch, betray the fact that they have been on terra firma for several
seconds or a minute, surely enough time for the frozen mass to cool its crust
veneer. Unless a rock were picked up virtually immediately upon impact, I
betcha most of those reports of them being red-hot are just wishful thinking
and/or sensationalism, like that story of the one that was "glowing
underwater". ;-)

Gregory

 
Received on Mon 12 Feb 2001 06:02:27 PM PST