[meteorite-list] Asteroid (149244) Kriegh

From: Jerry <grf2_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Tue, 27 Nov 2007 07:13:29 -0500
Message-ID: <145373BC610B4261866B8519BBD544FB_at_Notebook>

Great news for a Great man!
Jerry Flaherty
----- Original Message -----
From: "Rob Matson" <mojave_meteorites at cox.net>
To: "Meteorite Central" <meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com>
Sent: Tuesday, November 27, 2007 1:35 AM
Subject: [meteorite-list] Asteroid (149244) Kriegh


> Hi All,
>
> I'm happy to announce that last week the International Astronomical
> Union's
> Committee on Small Bodies Nomenclature approved my asteroid citation
> honoring
> Jim Kriegh:
>
> 149244 Kriegh
>
> Discovered 2002 Sept. 14 by R. Matson on NEAT images taken at
> Palomar.
>
> "James D. Kriegh (1928-2007) was a civil engineering professor at the
> University
> of Arizona and the founding father of Oro Valley, Arizona. A discoverer of
> many
> meteorites, he is best known for his discovery of the 15,000-year-old Gold
> Basin
> meteorite strewn field in northwest Arizona."
>
> JPL has already added "Kriegh" to its list of searchable asteroid names,
> and you can view a 3D dynamical applet of Jim's namesake minor planet
> using
> the following link:
>
> http://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/sbdb.cgi?sstr=kriegh;orb=1;cov=0;log=0#discovery
>
> I thought the timing of the IAU's approval was nicely coincidental, given
> that Jim discovered the first Gold Basin meteorite exactly 12 years ago
> on November 24th, 1995.
>
> Asteroid (149244) Kriegh is a member of the Flora family of inner main
> belt
> asteroids (S-type asteroids). Flora family members are the closest major
> asteroid group to earth and are considered good candidates for being the
> parent bodies of the L chondrites. This was in fact one of the reasons I
> chose this particular asteroid to be named after Jim -- the Gold Basin
> strewn field most likely traces its origin to a member of the Flora
> family.
>
> Based on a typical albedo for an S-type minor planet, Asteroid Kriegh is
> about 1-km in diameter, which gives it a mass somewhere in the
> neighborhood
> of a 1.5 billion metric tons. That's a lot of Gold Basin meteorites!
>
> Best wishes to Jim's family and friends,
>
> Rob
>
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Received on Tue 27 Nov 2007 07:13:29 AM PST