[meteorite-list] Fusion Crusted "Meteoroids"

From: Darren Garrison <cynapse_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Wed, 25 Mar 2009 15:16:04 -0500
Message-ID: <lj3ls4hsarcr2ijkfbluf3cbdfs8e42991_at_4ax.com>

On Wed, 25 Mar 2009 11:39:27 -0700, you wrote:

>Further when you look up into space there are a
>gazzillion sources of crust producing bodies.

No, there are not. There is a very small number, definable as the number of
planets and moons with an appreciable atmosphere. Are you suggesting that other
stars could be making fusion crusts on meteoroids in this solar system?

>And look at the age of most meteorites. It seem to
>me 4.56 billion years gives these space travelers
>plenty of time to have visited enough places to pick
>up fusion crusts here and there.

The original formation of the solar system was 4.56 billion years ago. However,
the lifetime of individual small meteoroids is much, much shorter than that.

>I earlier went on to theorize that perhaps this pre-fusion
>crust might actually help protect the material and up the
>odds of a safe landing here on earth. ( Yes it becomes
>a heat shield and helps protect the material at least enough
>to salvage some of the material.)

A heat shield must be made of a material with a melting point higher than that
of the material being protected, or else a thick enough layer that it would not
all be ablated away before slowing down. A thin fusion crust of the same
material the rest of the meteoroid is made from would not act as a heat shield.

>This only makes sense because we all know that some finds
>and falls simple have NO crust at all.

It makes sense to say that some meteoroids have a fusion crust heat shield that
protects them from ablating during atmospheric entry because we find some
meteorites with no fusion crust...
Received on Wed 25 Mar 2009 04:16:04 PM PDT