[meteorite-list] Seeking Out Meteorites (on the moon)

From: Rob McCafferty <rob_mccafferty_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Tue Nov 7 06:37:15 2006
Message-ID: <20061107113558.30174.qmail_at_web50901.mail.yahoo.com>

>
> AM: Apparently you're doing something that's getting
> the attention of a wide
> audience. For instance, making the case to go back
> to the moon to search for
> meteorites.
>
> Theoretically, they shouldn't be much different from
> meteorites that fell
> yesterday, because they all come from the same place
> in the solar system, but we
> don't know.
> Meteorites on the moon also could tell us about the
> flux of meteorites in
> antiquity

>
> MG: The Mars rovers have found meteorites, so it's
> not unreasonable to search
> for meteorites on the moon. It's going to be, not a
> difficult task, but a time
> consuming task. But I think it's worthwhile.
>
> The pictures we see of the moon are grey, and
> meteorites on Earth are black and
> brown. But are they that way on the moon? On Earth
> they're black because the
> friction from falling through the atmosphere causes
> them to melt and develop a
> fusion crust. But the moon has no atmosphere, so
> would they develop a fusion
> crust falling on the Moon? If not, they might be
> more difficult to spot. But I
> think that most meteorites will stand out from the
> surrounding rock. I would
> expect meteorites on the moon to be dominantly
> asteroidal, and we'll certainly
> be able to spot asteroidal meteorites and primitive
> carbonaceous chondrites. The
> difficulty will be in spotting any of the eucrites
> -- the basaltic rocks from
> Vesta -- because they look so similar to lunar
> rocks.
>
> I also would expect for there to be pieces that were
> broken off the Earth,
> although it might be difficult to spot terrestrial
> basalts. But a nice
> sedimentary limestone complete with fossils should
> stick out like a sore thumb.
>


Not a single mention nor suggestion of the fact that
meteorites on the earth tend to hit the ground at a
couple of hundred km/h maximum. They mention fusion
crust but not the fact that the atmosphere slows the
stuff down. On the moon they'll not hit at less than
2km/s. That they will be instantly vapourised and
barely a grain left. Difficult to spot because of a
lack of fusion crust? No, I don't see that being the
main problem.

Please tell me the the "Queen" has missed something
blindingly obvious and it's not me being quite
spectacularly stupid!



 
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Received on Tue 07 Nov 2006 06:35:58 AM PST