[meteorite-list] Slow cooling rate of irons in space

[Pete Shugar]

May I please inject just the one comment?
In space, the side facing the star (in our case, the sun) can get quite hot, 
ie close to the sun --hotter, and further away---less hot.
Conversly--the side away from the star can approach very high negative 
degrees, ie 250 to 400 below zero.
This is the "so darn cold" you were thinking about.
Pete

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Carl 's" <carloselguapo1 at hotmail.com>
To: <meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com>
Sent: Friday, September 04, 2009 8:18 PM
Subject: [meteorite-list] Slow cooling rate of irons in space




Hi Elton and All,

I've read about the very slow cooling rate of the molten iron in various 
books but I don't understand why this is so. Why would it take millions of 
years for just a few drops of degrees? It's hard for me to envision this 
even accounting for bombardments and radioactive decay. Radioactivity from 
the original super nova event, right?  Maybe it's because I think of space 
as being so darned cold it wouldn't take anything long to lose heat and 
freeze up. I realize radioactivity takes a long time to decay but would it 
take a lot or so little to keep a large planetary body hot for so long? 
Thanks.

Carl



Eman wrote:
>I think this theory has a potential fatal flaw if what we think we know 
>about
taenite/kamacite growth is valid. Without an insulating blanket the molten
pool will not exist in a molten state long enough to permit crystallization 
aka
Widmanstatten patterns.

Be it remembered that Widmanstatten pattern/crystal growth is very very slow 
on
the order of 10's of degrees cooling per million years. It is difficult to
develop a scenario that integrates a large crater on an Goldilocks Asteroid
which works.. ..


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