[meteorite-list] Questions about accretion.

Meteorites USA eric at meteoritesusa.com
Sun Apr 5 15:52:46 EDT 2009


Thanks for the responses thus far...

I've studied lots of material and scientific papers on accretion, but 
still have some questions. The gravity explanation is great, but it's a 
little vague. I want to know what causes it I guess at the molecular 
level. What physical forces and interactions cause the iron to migrate 
into such a solid mass at the core?

If gravity alone were the case, why is it we have H and L chondrites at 
all? Everything would be one big clump of mixed material. Has the iron 
not had a chance yet to migrate out of this layer of rock to the center 
of the asteroid? I know H and L chondrites are meteoroids that have 
broken off the parent bodies but my question is simply, had they not 
been blasted off the main body, how long would it take and in what 
manner would the iron have migrated from these layers of rock to the 
core? Iron doesn't just move through stone without some sort of catalyst 
or outside force does it? Gravity itself is not sufficient to move iron 
through a stone matrix no matter how much time passes is it? If there 
are no impacts or outside forces acting upon the body how does the iron 
loose itself from the grasp of the stone matrix to move through toward 
the core? Impacts?

At the beginning of the formation of a meteoroid is it electrostatic 
attraction that causes it to get larger? At what size does it produce 
it's own gravity? Or does it? How does and asteroid become so dense? If 
asteroids are super dense, and comets are loosely bound material and 
gases, would that mean that asteroids are dead comets?

Wow! I know that a lot of questions. sorry... ;)

Eric





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