[meteorite-list] 73P in 2022?

[E.P. Grondine]

Hi Rob - 

I don't think a spacecraft launch will be necessary to
obtain samples, but perhaps several launches may be
necessary for other reasons.

Aside from the recent bolides, and the several hundred
pound TNT equivalent hit at Troms, Norway, there
appear to have been hits by large SW3 fragments at Rio
Curaca, Brazil, 1930, 10 August, and Rupununi, British
Guiana 1935, 11 December.

SW3 has now fragmented into a stream some 6 million
kilometers long, 64 main fragments. Due to our lack of
knowledge of luminence we don't know how large these
fragments are, but the final estimated diameter for
SW3  was around 2 kilometers. (That provides a good
estimate as to cometissimal diameter, say around 30m,
but this is not likely to be uniform.  30m would agree
well with the remains at Chiemgau, findings under
"review").

The last public estimates I saw, from CNES and Western
Ontario, place close intercepts with the debris stream
in general in 2022 and 2049. I don't know what the
final estimated orbits for the individual fragments
were, but as the fragments' orbits will be affected by
Jupiter's gravity, etc... 

Yeah, we're likely to have some samples, say in the
5-15Kt range, but... We're also likely to have a dust
loading, but I don't know if negligible or moderate.
Given a peak around December, 2011, with the spread,
all of this will be just in time for the 2012 kooks.

Right now I don't think these fragments will further
significantly disintegrate; I wouldn't bet on hope in
this case. If you have any more recent information,
please share. 

good hunting, 
Ed
Man and Impact in the Americas
available through amazon.com

--- "Matson, Robert" <ROBERT.D.MATSON at saic.com> wrote:

> Hi Ed,
> 
> > Of course, SW3 is likely to provide us with some
> samples,
> > certainly by 2022.
> 
> Perhaps I'm reading too much into your posts, but
> several times in
> recent weeks you've mentioned the 2022 encounter
> with the
> 73P/Schwassmann-Wachmann cometary debris stream as
> if it
> will be a certain, spectacular event.  Yet SW3 is
> not a great
> comet, and given its penchant for fragmentation it
> seems to me
> that it might completely disintegrate before 2022
> rolls around,
> resulting in a "dud".  When you say "provide us with
> some samples",
> I assume you mean if we were to launch a spacecraft
> (e.g. with
> aerogel) to collect samples at that time?  --Rob
> 
> 
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