> > AM: Apparently you're doing something that's getting > the attention of a wide > audience. For instance, making the case to go back > to the moon to search for > meteorites. > > Theoretically, they shouldn't be much different from > meteorites that fell > yesterday, because they all come from the same place > in the solar system, but we > don't know. > Meteorites on the moon also could tell us about the > flux of meteorites in > antiquity
> > MG: The Mars rovers have found meteorites, so it's > not unreasonable to search > for meteorites on the moon. It's going to be, not a > difficult task, but a time > consuming task. But I think it's worthwhile. > > The pictures we see of the moon are grey, and > meteorites on Earth are black and > brown. But are they that way on the moon? On Earth > they're black because the > friction from falling through the atmosphere causes > them to melt and develop a > fusion crust. But the moon has no atmosphere, so > would they develop a fusion > crust falling on the Moon? If not, they might be > more difficult to spot. But I > think that most meteorites will stand out from the > surrounding rock. I would > expect meteorites on the moon to be dominantly > asteroidal, and we'll certainly > be able to spot asteroidal meteorites and primitive > carbonaceous chondrites. The > difficulty will be in spotting any of the eucrites > -- the basaltic rocks from > Vesta -- because they look so similar to lunar > rocks. > > I also would expect for there to be pieces that were > broken off the Earth, > although it might be difficult to spot terrestrial > basalts. But a nice > sedimentary limestone complete with fossils should > stick out like a sore thumb. > Not a single mention nor suggestion of the fact that meteorites on the earth tend to hit the ground at a couple of hundred km/h maximum. They mention fusion crust but not the fact that the atmosphere slows the stuff down. On the moon they'll not hit at less than 2km/s. That they will be instantly vapourised and barely a grain left. Difficult to spot because of a lack of fusion crust? No, I don't see that being the main problem. Please tell me the the "Queen" has missed something blindingly obvious and it's not me being quite spectacularly stupid! ____________________________________________________________________________________ Sponsored Link Try Netflix today! With plans starting at only $5.99 a month what are you waiting for? http://www.netflix.com/Signup?mqso=80010030 ______________________________________________ Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list