[meteorite-list] A Low-Density M-type Asteroid in the Main Belt

From: Steve Schoner <steve_schoner_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Apr 22 10:22:42 2004
Message-ID: <20030621224418.83370.qmail_at_web12705.mail.yahoo.com>

Remember that debate that I had with the late Darryl
Futrell regarding the origin of tektites.

My position was that these are impact products, and
that the craters may not exist as the impactor
disrupted in a Tunguska type event.

If this type of asteroid were to strike the earth,
would any major fragments of it reach the ground to
form craters in the way a more solid object would?
Would this type of object form, as I maintained in the
debates, "a crater in the air" rather than on the
ground?

In other words, a Tunguska event, with extreme
temperatures vaporiziing the impactor in the air, and
ground material, too.

And if many asteroids are like loose balls of dirt, I
wonder how many of them would not reach the ground to
produce a solid crater such as one would see on the
moon where there in no atmosphere to slow them down
before the smash into the lunar surface?

Something to consider.

Steve Schoner/ams
http://www.geocities.com/meteorite_identification


--- Ron Baalke <baalke_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov> wrote:
>
>
> Science Magazine
> June 20, 2003
> Abstract
>
> A Low-Density M-type Asteroid in the Main Belt
> J. L. Margot* and M. E. Brown
>
> The orbital parameters of a satellite revolving
> around 22 Kalliope indicate
> that the bulk density of this main-belt asteroid is
> 2.37 ± 0.4 grams per
> cubic centimeter. M-type asteroids such as Kalliope
> are thought to be the
> disrupted metallic cores of differentiated bodies.
> The low density indicates
> that Kalliope cannot be predominantly composed of
> metal and may be composed
> of chondritic material with 30% porosity. The
> satellite orbit is circular,
> suggesting that Kalliope and its satellite have
> different internal
> structures and tidal dissipation rates. The
> satellite may be an aggregate of
> impact ejecta from an earlier collision with
> Kalliope.
>
>
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Received on Sat 21 Jun 2003 06:44:18 PM PDT