[meteorite-list] Meteorite Questions

From: Walter Branch <waltbranch_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Mon, 3 Sep 2007 18:19:12 -0400
Message-ID: <021101c7ee78$761592c0$6101a8c0_at_BranchFamily>

Happy Labor Day to Americans!

I spent the day laboring the yard.

I wanted to thank everyone who sent me email (public and private) regarding
my meteorite questions last week. I now have more things to research.

-Walter Branch
________________________
----- Original Message -----
From: "Walter Branch" <waltbranch at bellsouth.net>
To: "Meteorite List" <meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com>
Sent: Wednesday, August 29, 2007 7:14 PM
Subject: [meteorite-list] Meteorite Questions


> Hello Everyone,
>
> I have had plenty of time recently to ponder things such as meteorites. I
> am also alone at home at present and am bored. Would some kind,
> more-knowledgeable-than-me soul help me with some meteoritical questions.
>
> For example, why does the rim of meteor crater appear "squared" in some
> photos, while in others it appears very round? Perspective? Lighting?
> Extremely highly localized tectonic shifting (back and forth)?
>
> Also, why is Tatahouine so green? Olivine? Krylon?
>
> I am looking at a slice of NWA 4664 right now (thank you Eric Olson) and I
> don't see any much green. Maybe that one is a bad example because NWA
> 4664 doesn't even look like at Diogenite!
>
> Also, I have read that some meteoroids travel through space in streams and
> impact the Earth simultaneously (i.e., they have already broken up before
> they hit the Earth's atmosphere). How can this be? I would think that
> once a meteoroid has broken in space (most likely due to impact), minute
> deviations of the individual pieces in the initial trajectory would
> translate into ever increasing deviations in the individual piece's
> trajectory, over time. Unless two pieces were traveling in EXACTLY
> parallel lines, over time the pieces would be widely dispersed in space.
>
> Remember comet Shoemaker-Levy 9? It was broken apart by gravitational
> forces from Jupiter only a year prior to impact, yet by the time it had
> encountered the Jovian atmosphere the separation between the pieces was
> wider than the diameter of the Earth! After only a year.
>
> Traveling over eons to make it to the inner solar system, how can a
> meteoroid stream stay intact enough to cause a tiny strewnfield on the
> Earth? I would not think that the Earth's gravitational field would be
> strong enough to do what Jupiter did.
>
> Also, I know I have asked this before but I still don't understand how
> researchers can determine cosmic ray exposure ages for a meteorite which
> ablated a significant portion of the material that absorbed most of the
> cosmic rays and which may have fragmented in flight through the Earth's
> atmosphere.
>
> Anyone?
>
> -Walter Branch
> ________________________
>
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Received on Mon 03 Sep 2007 06:19:12 PM PDT