[meteorite-list] Rocks from Space Picture of the Day -September 14, 2009

From: al mitt <almitt_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Tue, 15 Sep 2009 09:59:44 -0400
Message-ID: <915A2B65A0A2481F93EF2DBB2A341BE9_at_StarmanPC>

Hi Steve and all,

Not sure how fast the Sikhote fall came in at but it was a very low altitude
breakup and probably had quite a lot of it's cosmic velocity at impact so
the meteorites may have impacted at a fairly high velocity. I am sure that
someone has some statistics based on the fall which left over 120 impact
craters.

Some of these _may_ have been pretty warm and might have charred trees due
to the friction of embedding themselves. Seems like they would have done
more damage as you suggested though so maybe there are some other factors
(dynamics) to consider. Best!

--AL Mitterling

----- Original Message -----
From: "Steve Dunklee" <sdunklee72520 at yahoo.com>
To: <meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com>; <SPACEROCKSINC at aol.com>
Sent: Tuesday, September 15, 2009 3:32 AM
Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] Rocks from Space Picture of the Day -September
14, 2009


charred wood? I have seen black staining around steel jacketed bullets that
looks like charred wood, if they have been in the tree for several years.
But fresh bullet holes even from 22-250 bullets at 4000 fps are clean
without charring. I thought meteorites were cold on impact? can anyone
explain charring from a 70 gram object that impacted at less than 300 fps?
at 200 fps it would have bounced off the tree and at 350fps torn it in half.

   Its still a very cool looking example of a meteorite.
Cheers
Steve
Received on Tue 15 Sep 2009 09:59:44 AM PDT