[meteorite-list] Experts Skeptical of Peruvian Meteorite Impact

From: Jason Utas <meteoritekid_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2007 17:20:00 -0700
Message-ID: <93aaac890709201720s731c1ba5s37d1fbd049e5b8c5_at_mail.gmail.com>

> Maybe he meant (or said, and was misreported) that a small crater forming
> event was much more likely to involve an iron parent? That might be a
> reasonable statement.

Given that any given falling meteorite is ~950% more likely to be a
stone than an iron, I don't see this as likely...

With regards to the smaller likelihood of such a small crater being
produced by a stone rather than an iron (Sterling), I would have to
say that without some comparisons as to the relative abundances of
such stony bodies to irons, and without knowing any information such
as entry angle or velocity, not to mention the fact that without such
data, we don't even know what size the body initially was to any
reasonable degree, I would conclude that any such statement would have
had to have been made -very- prematurely.

Jason

On 9/20/07, Chris Peterson <clp at alumni.caltech.edu> wrote:
> Maybe he meant (or said, and was misreported) that a small crater forming
> event was much more likely to involve an iron parent? That might be a
> reasonable statement.
>
> Chris
> ________________________________
> Chris L Peterson
> http://www.cloudbait.com
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Jason Utas" <meteoritekid at gmail.com>
> To: "Meteorite-list" <meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com>
> Sent: Thursday, September 20, 2007 5:29 PM
> Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] Experts Skeptical of Peruvian Meteorite Impact
>
>
> > Hello All,
> >
> > This particular bit really makes me wonder about those fellows up at
> > JPL...
> >
> >>It's not impossible that the crater was left by a meteorite, Yeomans
> > said, but if so, then the impact object most likely was small, based
> > on the size of the crater. It would also probably have been a metal
> > meteorite, because those are the only kind of small meteorites that
> > don't burn up as they plummet through Earth's atmosphere, he added.
> > Small stony meteorites rarely make it to the surface.
> >
> > ...Does anyone else find his statement...completely wrong? I mean -
> > I'm used to such stuff coming out of reporters from god-knows-where,
> > but from a JPL employee...
> >
> > Jason
>
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Received on Thu 20 Sep 2007 08:20:00 PM PDT