Posted on 02/17/2006 9:06:57 AM PST by SunkenCiv
Iron meteorites thought to have originated in the asteroid belt beyond Mars may actually have formed near Earth, a new study reports... Iron meteorites are made up of iron and nickel alloys and comprise about 6% of all catalogued space rocks on Earth... Studies show that the known iron meteorites come from about 80 different parent asteroids, while the thousands of known stony meteorites broke off from just 40 or so parent bodies. That suggests astronomers should see many "differentiated" asteroids in the asteroid belt today, says William Bottke of the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado, US. But observations have turned up few basalt-covered asteroids, and asteroid "families" fragments of larger parent bodies that broke up after a collision show no signs of differentiation, says Bottke. "The asteroid belt seems to be telling us something very different than the meteorite record," Bottke told New Scientist. "It raises a lot of curious problems." ... "If you expect melting to happen anywhere, it's going to take place closer to the Sun than farther away," says Bottke. Bottke and his colleagues ran computer models of small bodies forming near the Sun and discovered that interactions with the rocky inner planets could have caused these bodies to break up. The interactions also caused a small fraction of them about 1% of those that formed near Earth, and about 10% of those born near Mars to be scattered outward into the asteroid belt... The scenario may explain why so few objects in the asteroid belt appear differentiated, and why recent studies of iron meteorites show they are 1 million to 2 million years older than stony meteorites, Bottke says.
(Excerpt) Read more at newscientistspace.com ...
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Was Mercury a hit-and-run planet?
MSNBC Space News | Jan. 11, 2006 | By Robert Roy Britt
Posted on 01/25/2006 10:26:47 PM PST by Swordmaker
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1565199/posts
Cataclysm 3.9 Billion Years Ago Was Caused By Asteroids, Not Comets
Science Daily | 3-4-2002
Posted on 03/04/2002 6:31:38 AM PST by blam
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/639501/posts
Red Planet's Ancient Equator Located
Scientific American (online) | April 20, 2005 | Sarah Graham
Posted on 04/24/2005 8:18:25 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1390424/posts
The Eltanin Impact Crater
Geological Society of America | October 27-30, 2002
Christy A. Glatz, Dallas H. Abbott, and Alice A. Nunes
Posted on 10/17/2004 9:46:13 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/1248414/posts
Giant asteroid rocked Antarctica
Near Earth Object Information Centre | 8/20/2004 | staff
Posted on 10/17/2004 9:26:51 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/1248406/posts
Scientists Probe Asteroid Crash
Brisbane Courier Mail | 25 August 2005 | Robyn Grace
Posted on 08/26/2005 7:00:38 AM PDT by Our_Man_In_Gough_Island
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1471169/posts
Cosmic Hole-in-One Captured Over Antarctica
RedNova | Monday, 5 September 2005, 20:43 CDT | staff / press release
Posted on 09/05/2005 9:36:19 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1478231/posts
Radar Reveals Five Double Asteroid Systems Orbiting Each Other Near Earth
Science Daily | 4-12-2002 | Cornell
Posted on 04/12/2002 6:24:24 AM PDT by blam
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/664669/posts
A Celestial Collision
Alaska Science Forum | February 10, 1983 | Larry Gedney
Posted on 09/15/2004 9:04:28 AM PDT by SunkenCiv
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1216757/posts
Astronomers unravel a mystery of the Dark Ages
EurekAlert | 3-Feb-2004 | Dr Derek Ward-Thompson
Posted on 02/03/2004 2:54:24 PM PST by ckilmer
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1070892/posts
In the shadow of the Moon
New Scientist | 30 January 1999 | editors
Posted on 08/31/2004 8:42:25 AM PDT by SunkenCiv
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1203912/posts
When the Days Were Shorter
Alaska Science Forum (Article #742) | November 11, 1985 | Larry Gedney
Posted on 10/04/2004 10:31:59 AM PDT by SunkenCiv
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1234919/posts
Catastrophism bump.
Isn't it obvious? You are witnessing sand evolving into rocks.
How stupid am I? I never gave that a thought, I mean, It's so OBVIOUS!
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