[meteorite-list] Artificial Lunar Meteorites?

From: Meteorites USA <eric_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu, 19 Mar 2009 22:30:40 -0700
Message-ID: <49C32A00.3000201_at_meteoritesusa.com>

I've got a few silly questions...

Let's say you had a large canon powered by compressed air or some other
high pressure gas.

If you fired a projectile ( a moon rock ) from the surface of the moon
toward Earth, would you be able to create enough force to reach escape
velocity?
If so, how long would it take for that projectile to reach Earth?
Would the projectile continue to increase speed after leaving the barrel
of the canon or does it stay at the velocity from which it leaves the
barrel?
If all these things were possible, and you were able to calculate
velocity, trajectory, and the entry point into the Earth's atmosphere,
would the stones survive the trip through our atmosphere? And/or how
large would the projectile have to be to survive atmospheric entry? (I
know this is a loaded question, please don't get caught up on this one,
the next one is the question I'm really curious about) ;)

And finally...

If the projectile (moon rock) did survive all of this, would it be
considered a meteorite?

Scientifically speaking wouldn't this be an interesting experiment?

Send a lander to the moon with a BIG canon and launch some moon rocks
dude! ;)

Regards,
Eric Wichman
Meteorites USA


In response to

Dave Gheesling wrote:

"...Meteorites don't enter our atmosphere attached to spheres, and
presumably that artificial contraption may have made for a
different-than-typical result...."

All best,
Dave
www.fallingrocks.com
Received on Fri 20 Mar 2009 01:30:40 AM PDT