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Re: (meteorobs) Pictures of the Spanish 'ice meteorite'
Well, I don't USUALLY comment on meteorite threads on 'meteorobs', but this
is a particularly quirky one... I'm a proponent of the "airplane lavatory"
scenario here myself, and I'll explain why:
>explode just like those powder golf balls hit from a tee? Is it the extreme
>cold that glues these particle together? Would the same cold hold a piece a
>ice together? Just food for thought.
One thing re ice from space: in order for the volatiles in an object to survive
in near-earth orbit, it would have to be quite large, i.e., the size of a small
comet nucleus! Keep in mind that the daylight surface temperature of Earth's
Moon rises well over +200oF... This is indicative of near-earth temperatures,
which would have to be survived by the volatile-containing object for at least
several days, and more likely weeks. Rotation, high albedo and non-volatile
mix-ins might all of course serve to keep the object cool, but it still seems
unlikely any mostly-volatile smaller than several tens of meters would survive.
>BTW I liked Kim Y's observation that how likely would it be that Spain seems
>to have the bulls eye on it. I'd just like to point out that 3 houses on one
>block in Connecticut USA were hit by separate meteorites on separate
>occasions...
Were there really THREE?! I heard about TWO meteorite falls in the same town
in CT, but this surprised me. Statistically, 3 is very different from 2. :)
Caveat: I'm a meteorite neophyte, and will probably remain so for the fore-
seeable future. So please correct me whenever I stray on this topic!
Lew
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