(meteorobs) Musings on Sentinel objectives.

[Marco Langbroek]

stange schreef:
> As Ed noted earlier, it is my understanding that obtaining Meteorite 
> specimens for analysis was the original purpose of the Sentinel program.
> 
> But since the abundance of Antarctic specimens, it appears to me that the 
> Sentinel program has now evolved from that primary objective, to an 
> objective of identifying more precisely, the orbits of present meteor 
> streams and even more aggressively, the detection and orbits of new 
> pontentially dangerous earth crossing streams of Comet origin.

While the abundance of meteorites from Antarctica and specifically the Sahara is 
indeed volumes now, what is still very rare is being able to connect a meteorite 
to a solar system orbit. There is only a handful of recovered meteorites where 
we know their orbits in the solar system before they fell. That is the primary 
purpose of most all-sky networks, and one that is still one with priority I think.

Besides that, recovering a fresh fall means you have the opportunity to research 
short-lived cosmic isotopes in the stone, something which isn't possible with 
Antarctic or Sahara meteorites given their old terrestrial ages.

- Marco

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Dr Marco (asteroid 183294) Langbroek
Dutch Meteor Society (DMS)

e-mail: dms at marcolangbroek.nl
http://www.dmsweb.org
http://www.marcolangbroek.nl
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