[meteorite-list] Stony-iron Parent Bodies

From: Martin Horejsi <martinh_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Apr 22 09:43:33 2004
Message-ID: <B77F4ECA.1D19%martinh_at_isu.edu>

Al kindly wrote:
> I haven't read anything recent on stony-iron pairings and possible new parent
> bodies
> but based on what I have read in the past there are two distinct pairings for
> the
> stony-iron classes. I think only one for the mesosiderites, though it has been
> suggested that asteroid Vesta could also be a source of the meso's.

Hi Al and all,

There is an article in the latest MAPS (Meteoritics and Planetary Science)
journal about the origin of Mesosiderites. The authors are Scott, Haack &
Love. When I was at the Johnson Space Center last year, I had the pleasure
of speaking with Dr. Love (also an astronaut) at length about chondrule
formation and the possible parent bodies for the enstatite achondrites.
While much of the science in the article deals with computer modeling, the
authors do suggest, and I quote:

"Our conclusion that mesosiderites formed by scrambling of a differentiated
asteroid suggest that differentiated asteroids can be camouflaged by
catastrophic impacts."

They continue, "Davis et al. (1999) suggest instead that a catastrophic
impact mixed metal with silicate on the surface and that [the asteroid]
Psyche may even be the parent body of the mesosiderites." (page 878, MAPS
2001 July)

Cheers,

Martin
Received on Sat 21 Jul 2001 05:22:51 PM PDT