[meteorite-list] Fusion Crusted "Meteoroids"

From: Darren Garrison <cynapse_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Wed, 25 Mar 2009 17:03:03 -0500
Message-ID: <jp8ls493ejj2taqtqsij5m7ta2dgq2vld7_at_4ax.com>

On Wed, 25 Mar 2009 12:49:25 -0700, you wrote:

>THERE YOU GO AGAIN RAMBLEING WITH YOUR WORTHLESS AND SARCASTIC INFORMATION.

I am well aware that you are far beyond help-- I reply to your rants only to
provide information for people who are willing to learn.

>OTHER PLANETS NOT STARS. YOU SIMPLY DON'T KNOW EVEN IF YOU THINK YOU DO!

There are not a "gazillion" planets/moons in the solar system.

>IS IT REALLY? THEN WHY DO WE CONSIDER THESE METEORITES ARE THE AGE
>THEY ARE WHICH IS IN THE 4.5 BILLION YEAR RANGE? DO YOU REALLY NOT KNOW
>HOW OLD METEORITES ARE? AGAIN, READ ANY OF NORTON'S BOOKS.

The original parent bodies of meteorites are around 4.56 billion years old. But
the small meteoroids that zip around space and occasionally enter the Earth's
atmosphere are tiny chips broken off of big chuncks broken off of asteroids
created by the collisons between the original 4.56 billion year old parent
bodies. Taken from the Encyclopedia Britannica:

"The vast majority of meteorites have exposure ages that are greater than one
million years. For chondritic meteorites, the number of meteorites with a given
cosmic-ray exposure age drops off quite quickly as the age increases. Most
ordinary chondrites have exposure ages of less than 50 million years, and most
carbonaceous chondrites less than 20 million years. Achondrites have ages that
cluster between 20 and 30 million years. Iron meteorites have a much broader
range of exposure ages, which extend up to about two billion years. There are
often peaks in the exposure age distributions of meteorite groups; these
probably reflect major impact events that disrupted larger bodies."

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/378148/meteorite/259018/Cosmic-ray-exposure-ages-of-meteorites

Therefore, small meteoroid bodies do not have 4.56 billion years in which to
develop a fusion crust.


>YES A MELTED COMBINATION OF ALL OF THESE MATERIALS
>WOULD BE STRONGER THAN IT'S ORIGINAL INDIVIDUAL PARTS.

There is a category of observations that is called a "scientific law"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_law

One of those scientific laws is called "conservation of energy"

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/187240/conservation-of-energy

http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/K-12/airplane/thermo1f.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservation_of_energy

which states, simplified, that "energy cannot be created or destroyed, it can
only chage forms."

One form of energy is called "kinetic energy."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinetic_energy

This is the energy possesed by a moving object. A meteoroid contains a HUGE
amount of kinetic energy.

http://muller.lbl.gov/teaching/Physics10/old%20physics%2010/physics%2010%20notes/meteorKE.html

http://www.phys.unsw.edu.au/~jw/meteor.html

When a meteoroid enters the atmosphere, it is traveling at thousands of miles
per hour. Over the space of a few seconds, that meteoroid is slowed to a
standstill (if it isn't small enough to ablate away entirely, or big enough to
reach the ground with some cosmic velocity remaining). That means that, during
those few seconds, the meteoroid has lost all of that huge amount of cosmic
energy. BUT-- energy isn't created or destroyed, it just changes forms. That
kinetic energy has to go somewhere. And it goes into light, sound, and heat.
Vast amounts of heat. Enough heat to melt almost anything. BUT, since that
meteoroid is traveling at hypersonic speeds, the melted portion of the meteoroid
is blown away from the meteoroid's surface as quickly as it forms, taking along
with it the heat just released. Mechanical strength isn't the issue with a
pre-atmospheric entry "fusion crust" protecting a meteoroid-- melting point is.

>AND WE HAVE NO IDEA HOW THICK OR THIN THIS EARLY CRUST
>MIGHT BE DO WE? IT MAY START OUT SEVERAL INCHES THICK.
>WE SIMPLY HAVE NO WAY OF KNOWING. AGAIN , WE CAN ONLY GUESS.

We also have no evidence of a pre-atmospheric entry fusion crust, or a proposed
mechanism for forming one (a fusion crust formed by previous pass through an
atmosphere would, by the very fact of it's existance, be proof that that
hypothetical fusion crust was subject to melting due to the heat of atmospheric
entry.)
Received on Wed 25 Mar 2009 06:03:03 PM PDT