[meteorite-list] 'Meteor' drop-tests, have been done?

From: (wrong string) ørn Sørheim <bsoerhei_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Apr 22 10:22:38 2004
Message-ID: <200306142136.XAA01513_at_mail45.fg.online.no>

Hello List,

There was a thread some months ago about someone going to drop
heavy objects from an aeroplane on the salt flats near Salt Lake City,
Utah.
Did they go through with that, and are there pictures, anything on the

web or elsewhere on the outcome?

For my part, living in a country with a tremendous number of
ice-covered lakes in the winter time (a really LARGE area) dropping
such objects on _ice lakes_ would be of even more interest.
Seems the task is very straightforward; hire an aeroplane an hour or
so. Have some kind of cockpit controlled dropping container on the
belly of the areoplane. See to that it is foolproof - IMPORTANT!
Fill it with a variety of meteorite-like objects, pure iron pieces,
iron slag, ordinary rocks and maybe even some softer objects.
Have a variety of weights on these.
Maybe one should add a long sharply colored ribbon on (some of) them,
or a container with paint taped to them, that explodes on impact to
easily be able to spot them on the surface.
Then just choose a suitable ice-covered lake and (let the pilot) drop
it. It would be a good idea to measure the ice thickness on
beforehand, so one would have a good idea of whether it's going
through or not. It would surely leave two different kinds of marks.

This way we can get to see how a meteorite hitting the winter part of
the world makes its marks on icy surfaces. We may then be able to
avoid all the 'meteorwrong marks' on icy surfaces, which seems to pop
up all the time - melting holes being the prime confuser. Such a drop
mark would surely have its very distinct kind of features, very
different from other causes of marks. I have personally found no
references to science on such features anywhere up to now...

As it's summer here now, it might be even easier to ask if someone
have done a similar experiment. Surely it must have been done, yes..??
References?

Best wishes,
Bjørn Sørheim
Received on Sat 14 Jun 2003 05:37:47 PM PDT