[meteorite-list] Mercury & Venus?

From: almitt <almitt_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Apr 22 09:52:06 2004
Message-ID: <3D4F7CF5.B52A47D8_at_kconline.com>

Hi James,

We have discussed this before and it is an interesting topic. If you search the list
archives at meteorite central web site, you can search under Mercury and Venus
Meteorites. If you need help I will pull it up for you and send by private email. It
is probable that material from the two inner planets could reach the Earth but as you
stated that the material would have to have enough energy to escape the closer orbit
to the Sun and come out farther. It is easier for objects to loose energy and fall
inwards or have enough of an elliptical orbit to become Earth crossing (thanks to
Jupiter's gravity) and harder for objects to gain energy and come out from an inner
orbit.

There have been computer models ran and they give a probability of the Earth picking
up material from the two inner planets. I don't know if they have taken into
consideration the atmosphere of Venus which is 100 time thicker than our atmosphere. A
Venus meteorite would be very highly differentiated and altered. Then you have to find
it on the ground which are also difficult odds. I would say we have a better chance of
having something from Mercury than Venus but I don't think the models predict this.

--AL
Received on Tue 06 Aug 2002 03:38:29 AM PDT