[meteorite-list] Strange Newspaper Headline About Meteorites

From: Sterling K. Webb <sterling_k_webb_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Wed Mar 8 18:33:07 2006
Message-ID: <00dd01c64308$a4615780$c1e38c46_at_ATARIENGINE>

Hi,


    Nothing seems to have come from
the Greenland fireball. The explanation
I heard was that the speed estimates
were just an error.

    However, there are meteors that
ARE interstellar, tiny 100 micron ones,
anyway. AMOR radars have always
detected a small percentage of meteors
with velocities above 75 km/sec.

    Decades ago, these were often
ignored as glitches in the equipment
but the detections persist as the
electronics and the sensitivity of the
equipment have improved immensely,
in fact, have increased in number, so
it's generally accepted that they're
real.

    A big percentage of them come
from the direction of beta Pictoris
and its huge dust disk, a good source
of interstellar particles, but hardly a
preferred location for glitches...

    Once upon a when I extrapolated
like crazy and cooked up an estimate
of how many tons of interstellar
material must be streaming through
the solar system to account for the
numbers intercepted by Earth and
detected on Amor radars, and while
I can't remember the figure, it
was not inconsiderable.

    The Galaxy leaks...


Sterling K. Webb
-----------------------------------
----- Original Message -----
From: "Larry Lebofsky" <lebofsky_at_lpl.arizona.edu>
To: "Paul" <bristolia_at_yahoo.com>
Cc: <meteorite-list_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Sent: Wednesday, March 08, 2006 2:22 PM
Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] Strange Newspaper Headline About Meteorites


> Paul:
>
> Did a Google search and found the following on CCNet Digest.
>
> http://abob.libs.uga.edu/bobk/ccc/cc082198.html
>
>
> Event occurred in Dec. 1997!
>
> Larry
>
> Co-editor Meteorite magazine
>
> PLEASE NOTE:
>
> Information circulated on the cambridge-conference network is for
> scholarly use only. The attached text may not be reproduced
> or transmitted without prior permission of the copyright holder.
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> *
>
> CCNet DIGEST, 21 August 1998
> ----------------------------
>
>
> (1) INTERSTELLAR METEOROIDS
> Duncan Steel <dis_at_a011.aone.net.au>
>
> (2) METEORITE DUST TO BE TESTED
> The Electronic Telegraph
>
> (3) GREENLAND IMPACTOR MAY HAVE COME FROM INTERSTELLAR SPACE
> MSNBC Space News
> http://www.msnbc.com/news/189444.asp
>
> (4) DOUBTS ABOUT INTERSTELLAR ORIGIN OF GREENLAND METEORITE
> Mike DiMuzio <mdimuzio_at_cisnet.com>
>
> (5) TASK COMPLETED IN GREENLAND
> The Tycho Brahe Expedition
> http://www.astro.ku.dk/tycho/tbe98/english/status/
>
> ===============
> (1) INTERSTELLAR METEOROIDS
>
>>From Duncan Steel <dis_at_a011.aone.net.au>
>
> Dear Benny,
>
> Item from The Daily Telegraph (21 August 1998) appended.
>
> The existence of meteoroids and/or comets arriving from interstellar
> space is a subject which has been contentious for decades; see:
>
> A.D. Taylor, W.J. Baggaley & D.I. Steel, Discovery of interstellar dust
> entering the Earth's atmosphere, Nature, 380, 323-325 (1996).
>
> Duncan Steel
>
> -------
> (2) METEORITE DUST TO BE TESTED
>
>>From the Electronic Telegraph
> International News
> Friday 21 August 1998 Issue 1183
>
> Meteorite dust to be tested
>
> DUSTY remains of a meteorite that crashed into Greenland are to be
> tested to see if it came from outside our solar system.
>
> The extreme speed of the object, recorded on video film, suggests it
> may have come from interstellar space, which would mark a first if
> confirmed. A giant fireball was seen on 9 December over a large part of
> southern Greenland. Some reports said that "night was turned into day"
> and others likened it to "a giant millipede of fire with yellow,
> glowing legs".
>
> The meteorite was calculated to weigh at least a ton. An expedition to
> the south-western part of the Greenland ice cap found no large
> meteorite fragments, only about 200 samples of dust.
>
> END
>
> Copyright 1998, The Daily Telegraph
>
> =======================
> (3) GREENLAND IMPACTOR MAY HAVE COME FROM INTERSTELLAR SPACE
>
>>From MSNBC Space News
> http://www.msnbc.com/news/189444.asp
>
> Sleuths bring meteorite dust from Greenland: Space rock may have come
> from beyond solar system
>
> REUTERS
>
> COPENHAGEN, Denmark, Aug. 20 - A meteorite which crashed into Greenland
> last December may have come from outside our solar system, a Danish
> astronomer said Thursday. He said that would be a "world first" in the
> meteorite field.
>
> A FOUR-WEEK EXPEDITION to the southwestern part of the Greenland ice
> cap failed to find fragments of the meteorite but returned home
> Wednesday with about 200 samples of dust.
>
> Astronomer Lars Lindberg Christensen of Denmark's Tycho Brahe
> Planetarium, a member of the seven-man expedition, said analysis of the
> dust samples could yield clues to the origin of the meteorite.
>
> "It may have come with enough speed that it actually originated outside
> our solar system. That would make it a world first," he told Reuters by
> telephone.
>
> The center has collected more than 100 eyewitness reports, three
> seconds of videotape and data from a U.S. defense satellite of the
> meteorite's plunge through the Earth's atmosphere.
>
> Calculations based on the video frames of the meteorite's descent,
> which lit up the night sky over Greenland on Dec. 9, put its velocity
> at 35 miles per second, or one and a half times the maximum speed of
> any known meteorite in our solar system, Christensen said.
>
> At such a speed, the object would have disintegrated, and the only
> traces would be dust, he said.
>
> "It also means that it is most likely that the snow samples contain
> dust from the meteorite," he said.
>
> The expedition collected enough dust to allow the particles to be
> examined thoroughly, revealing their molecular and atomic composition.
>
> If analysis shows the dust particles are more than 4.5 billion years
> old, that would confirm that the meteorite originated in interstellar
> space, he said. Our solar system is thought to have formed 4.5 billion
> years ago.
>
> Preliminary findings from the Niels Bohr astrophysics and geophysics
> institute and the geological institute of the University of Copenhagen
> could be ready in a matter of months, Christensen said.
>
> Traces of more than 10,000 meteorites have been found on Earth, but the
> Greenland find is special because it is one of the few that have been
> seen plunging from space.
>
> ? 1998 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.
>
> ====================
> (4) DOUBTS ABOUT INTERSTELLAR ORIGIN OF GREENLAND METEORITE
>
>>From Mike DiMuzio <mdimuzio_at_cisnet.com>
>
> Reuters is reporting that the Danish Greenland Meteorite expedition
> has ended without their finding any fragments from the fall last
> December.
>
> However, they returned with over 200 dust samples. The scientists
> estimate that the meteoroid hit Earth's atmosphere at over 35 miles per
> second, 50 percent fster that the speed of any known meteorite. This
> led them to speculate that the meteorite originated outside our solar
> system.
>
> I find this pretty thin evidence, as I believe several meteor showers
> have meteor speeds estimated well in excess of 35 miles per second, but
> I could be wrong. They plan on analyzing the age of the dust particles
> to see if they are older than the solar system. Because of its speed,
> they speculate the meteorite disintegrated upon entry and any large
> pieces may never be found.
>
> Of course, this is only speculation on their part, since they have yet
> to positively identify the dust as meteoritic in origin. A ststus page
> can be found
>
> at http://www.astro.ku.dk/tycho/tbe98/english/status/
>
> Mike
>
> =====================
> (5) TASK COMPLETED IN GREENLAND
>
>>From The Tycho Brahe Expedition
> http://www.astro.ku.dk/tycho/tbe98/english/status/
>
> (August 17)
>
> The participants of the expedition have completed their task as well as
> could be expected under the given circumstances. The line of directions
> from the steering committee were followed, and in spite of the week
> wasted (which is normal in Greenland, because of the changing weather),
> they still managed to cover a larger search area than originally
> planned. A week before the end of the expedition new information was
> received from the Czech meteorite expert Ceplecha and some American
> experts that the fall-out zone might be some km more to the north.
> These informations were e-mailed directly to the camp and plans were
> made to cover the new northern search area.
>
> The steering committee is satisfied with the fact, that the expedition
> managed to collect large amount of snow samples for further studies of
> possible dust from the meteorite. The team even had time to search
> large areas inside the search area for fragments - unfortunately with
> no luck. The studies of the snow in the search area were most important
> this summer, before the snow melts or is covered by new snow.
>
> The dust samples now have to go through a long and thorough test to
> determine if the samples contain authentic meteoric material or not.
> This week a team will be appointed to reach a decision hopefully within
> a few months.
>
>
>
>
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Received on Wed 08 Mar 2006 06:33:01 PM PST