[meteorite-list] Lunar and Martian Meteorites

From: (wrong string) ørn Sørheim <bsoerhei_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Apr 22 10:25:38 2004
Message-ID: <200305111920.VAA11025_at_mail48.fg.online.no>

At 18:53 11.05.03 UT, Bernd wrote:
>Hello Listees and Listoids,
>
>Something else that has always been a puzzle to me is the relatively small
size of lunar and martian meteorites found to date. Why aren't there really
big ones like the Jilin main mass (1770 kg), the 408 kg Paragould LL5 stone,
or the 91 kg Juvinas eucrite? Does this have to do with orbital dynamics in
the Earth-Moon and the Earth-Mars system? Are there tidal forces that
literally disrupt martian or lunar meteorites somewhere on their way to Earth?

Bernd,
I think this is easy to answer, it has to do with statistics and size
distribution:
Think of the number of grains of sand on this planet (and others), compared to
huge boulders, say 50 m or larger. There aren't many of the latter in proximity
to your location, are there? On the other hand how many 'zillions' of grains
of sand
are there, whereever you might happen to live?
So if you choose a small subset of a large population of rock fragments, this
is bound to contain a large proportions of the small individuals, and none or
very few of the large ones. If you then multiply the population by several
orders
of magnitude, then first the really large ones will pop up, I'm confident...
You would agree, won't you??

Regards,
Bjørn Sørheim
Received on Sun 11 May 2003 03:20:30 PM PDT