[meteorite-list] 73P in 2022?

From: E.P. Grondine <epgrondine_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Tue Oct 3 12:41:57 2006
Message-ID: <20061003164154.18885.qmail_at_web36911.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

Hi Rob -

Take a look at the Rio Curaca and Rupunini impacts,
then opine. That material came from some source, and
an SW3 debris stream makes a pretty good candidate.

Thankfully, worrying about all of this is not my job.
It's NASA Administrator Michael Griffin's, by act of
Congress.

I'm optimistic about SW3 in 2022, but not for the same
reasons you are. Given the fragment size, I think
that it is highly unlikely that they will produce
Tunguska size blasts. My guess would be some in the
5kt-15kt range, nothing bigger.

I agree with you on probable climatic effects of the
dust load, but again that is only a guess, and its not
my job to guess. It's Administrator Griffin's to know.
 

Its also likely it will shortly end up being NASA's
task to respond to insane claims spread on late night
talk radio about the SW3 encounter for December 2011,
January-February, 2012. Insane idiots and charlatans
rely on the public's inability to understand orbital
mechanics.

Right now the NEC astronomers are strangely not saying
too much about the 2022 encounter. We'll see.

Ed

--- Rob Matson <mojave_meteorites_at_cox.net> wrote:

> Hi Ed,
>
> Finally getting back to you on the subject of 73P's
> return
> at the end of May in 2022.
>
> > Aside from the recent bolides, and the several
> hundred
> > pound TNT equivalent hit at Troms, Norway, there
> appear to
> > have been hits by large SW3 fragments at Rio
> Curaca, Brazil,
> > 1930, 10 August, and Rupununi, British Guiana
> 1935, 11 December.
>
> I haven't researched the 1930 or 1935 possibilities
> you mention
> above, but the connection between the Troms, Norway
> event and 73P
> has some problems. That Norway bolide occurred at
> ~2:05am local
> time on June 7th (~12:05am GMT). Earth was not near
> any of the
> nodal crossing points in 2006: see figure 5 on page
> 6 of the
> following PDF link (which is page 643) and note that
> earth's
> closest approach to any meteoroids ejected from SW3
> in prior
> years (going back to 1801) was on May 31 at a
> distance of at
> least 0.04 a.u. (~3.7 million miles):
>
> http://aquarid.physics.uwo.ca/%7Epbrown/taus.pdf
>
> By June 7th, the distance was more than double that.
> I will
> concede that at least the tau Herculid radiant was
> high in
> the southwest at the time of the bolide -- in the
> vicinity of
> delta Bootis (which was more than 50 degrees above
> azimuth
> 240 degrees). This location is in roughly the same
> quadrant
> of the sky from which the Troms bolide appears to
> have come.
>
> The 2022 nodal crossing looks much more promising
> for a minor
> meteor shower (though nothing spectacular according
> to P.A.
> Wiegert). Keep in mind that we're talking about
> comet dust
> here -- not meteoroids. Other than whatever large
> SW3 fragments
> following the 2006 breakup still remain in 2022, I
> would expect
> its dust cloud to be about as survivable as that of
> any other
> short-period comet: i.e. not very. (Aren't too
> many samples
> of Swift-Tuttle, Temple-Tuttle, Halley or 3200
> Phaethon in our
> meteorite collections!)
>
> Cheers,
> Rob
>
>


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Received on Tue 03 Oct 2006 12:41:54 PM PDT