[meteorite-list] Vesta and its core.

Shawn Alan photophlow at yahoo.com
Sat Jul 24 03:21:57 EDT 2010


Ok so if you weren't addressing Angrites in the first place with Vesta I am going to change the subject to Vesta and its core
 
Now you say that Vesta's core volume is roughly 17% and Earth is roughly 17% as well. This being said, at 2.35 A.U. Vesta wouldn’t be able to attain an iron core at the volume at that distance, concluding to you, that Vesta accreted closer to the Sun. Ill refresh your memory what you said in your previous post.....
 
 "If there is only enough available iron 
at 1.5 AU for Mars to accumulate a core that is only 
8% of its volume), how could Vesta, at 2.35 AU, have 
accumulated enough iron for a core 17.5% of its 
volume, or 56% of its original, uncratered diameter?"
 
Simple.... Vesta is only 300 miles in diameter; Earth’s core is the size of the moon. Vestas core has been suggested to be at 130 miles. So to obtain iron wouldn’t take much compared to Earth core.
 
My guess is this:
 
Abstract:
 
Geological History of Asteroid 4 Vesta:
The “Smallest Terrestrial Planet”
 
Klaus Keil
 
Taking
into account the somewhat uncertain radial heterogeneity
in 53Mn in the formation regions, these ages can be
used to translate the 53Mn-53Cr formation intervals of eucrites
into an absolute age for the differentiation of Vesta.
Based on measurements of the basaltic eucrite Chervony
Kut, for example, an age of 4563.6 ± 0.9 Ma is derived, only
a few million years younger than the formation of CAIs
(Lugmair and Shukolyukov, 1998). Furthermore, the great
antiquity of the eucrites and hence the evidence for melting
and differentiation of Vesta on a timescale of a few million
years is further supported by the detection of the decay
products of other extinct radionuclides such as 26Mg from
the decay of 26Al (half-life 0.73 m.y.) (Srinivasan et al.,
1999; Nyquist et al., 2001) and 60Ni from the decay of 60Fe
(half-life 1.5 m.y.) (see references in Carlson and Lugmair,
2000).... 
 
Modeling of the thermal history of Vesta by Ghosh
and McSween (1998) suggests that heating by 26Al would
keep the mantle hot for ~100 m.y., consistent with the
younger ages of cumulate eucrites....
 
There is convincing geochemical evidence that Vesta
experienced a high degree of (or possibly complete) melting
that resulted in the formation of a metal core. For example,
the depletion in moderately siderophile incompatible
elements (e.g., Ni, Co, Mo, W, P) relative to nonsiderophile
incompatible elements in HED meteorites suggests metal
segregation and hence core formation (e.g., Hewins and
Newsom, 1988, and references therein; Righter and Drake,
1997). However, estimates of the amount of metal in Vesta
vary widely between 0 and 50 wt% (see references in
Ruzicka et al., 1997). For example, Ruzicka et al. (1997)
estimated the mass of the core by mass balance from the
density of Vesta and the density of the silicate fraction to
be between ~0 and 25 wt%, with the best estimate being
~5 wt%. They also suggested that the core is <130 km in
radius, the olivine-rich mantle is ~65–220 km thick, the
lower crustal diogenite unit is ~12–43 km thick, and the
upper crustal eucrite unit is ~23–42 km thick. Dreibus et al.
(1997) estimated the mass of the core from their calculated
composition of the bulk silicate portion of Vesta (assuming
CI abundances for Fe and Ni) to be 21.7 wt%. They
also calculated the density of the mantle to be 3400 kg/m3
and, with a core density of 7900 kg/m3, calculated the bulk
density of Vesta to be 3800 kg/m3, in good agreement with
the astronomically determined values (see above). With a
radius of 263 km and a core mass of 21.7 wt%, they calculated
a core radius of 123 km.
 
http://www.lpi.usra.edu/books/AsteroidsIII/pdf/3034.pdf
 
26AI has been brought up in many papers to explain differentiation among parent bodys and not to mention, Vesta. I like your take on how you think Vesta might have formed, but I find it very odd that you have no scientific articles that relate to Vesta and how you think Vesta formed in a different part of the solar system. I am also at loss with your reasoning of Earths, Mars, and Vestas volume to ratio to the core size. Vesta is 300 miles in diameter making the core a mere 100 miles in diameter if that and Earths iron core the size of the moon. But again the core is speculative and we won’t know till Dawn goes by in Aug 2011. But all I know is that 26AI is a great candidate for differentiation to take place with Vesta and not to mention the scientific research to back up how Vesta came to be.

 
 
Shawn Alan
IMCA 1633
eBaystore
http://shop.ebay.com/photophlow/m.html?_nkw=&_armrs=1&_from=&_ipg=&_trksid=p4340




[meteorite-list] Its official! NWA 6291 "The King ofAngrites"forsale - AD
Sterling K. Webb sterling_k_webb at sbcglobal.net 
Sat Jul 24 01:28:51 EDT 2010 

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Actually, I was not addressing the specific question 
of the origin of this angrite (or any angrite), but the 
more general problem of the "universal assumption 
that every sizeable body in the solar system currently 
resides at the same address where it accreted originally." 
If things move around, it complicates the picture 
considerably. 

I used Vesta as an example of a body that can't have 
accreted in place. If there is only enough available iron 
at 1.5 AU for Mars to accumulate a core that is only 
8% of its volume), how could Vesta, at 2.35 AU, have 
accumulated enough iron for a core 17.5% of its 
volume, or 56% of its original, uncratered diameter? 
The Earth has a core of 17% of its volume, or just a 
hair less than Vesta. Mercury has a core that's 43% 
of its volume. Both the Earth and Mercury have 
acquired part-corers from encounters with impactors 
though. 

Iron is a moderately refractory element. It will be 
vaporized in the solar nebula only relatively close 
to the Sun. The temperature will drop by the square 
of the distance out in the protoplanetary disc and 
iron will soon condense into the materials from 
which grains will form, get sticky, form particles, 
accrete, etc. 

How you gonna get that much iron vaporized out at 
2.35 AU? The answer to that question is the same one 
I gave before: No Way. And for the same reason. 

If you want to know what should accrete out there, 
you can compare Vesta to Ceres. Ceres is in essentially 
the same region as Vesta, at 2.7 AU compared to 
Vesta's 2.35. AU. Ceres seems to have no core at all, 
although Ceres is certainly large enough to have 
differentiated. Ceres likely did accrete in place from 
rock and ice, as it is the largest body in the asteroid 
zone, six times the volume of the original, uncratered 
Vesta. 

We can identify Lunar and Martian meteorites only 
because we have composition data gathered by humans 
and robots. That's the only reason. Without a sample 
or a set of readings from Mercury, or Venus, or anywhere, 
the means of reasonable proof are absent. 

When the Dawn mission gets to Vesta, we will likely 
be able to nail down the HED identification with that 
body. I quote the mission parameters: "This mission 
was designed to verify the basaltic nature of Vesta 
inferred both from its reflectance spectrum and from 
the composition of the howardite, eucrite and diogenite 
meteorites believed to have originated on Vesta." 

Failure to find the expected HED terrain on Vesta would 
be.... interesting. Dawn will be the first test of the entire 
effort to "reason out" parent bodies. It will provide evidence 
where they has mostly been speculation. 

The paper you cite (by Chambers) is a good summary 
of the problems in planetary formation theory. There 
are lots of those. I used Vesta as an example because 
it's an obvious example of the sort of thing he discusses 
in the section on "planetary embryos." Vesta would be 
at the smallest end of their size range -- not too hard 
to toss around. 

Until there is evidence enough to settle the question, it 
remains speculation. we've had definitions of Science and 
of Faith on the List recently. Let me add another one more: 
Speculation. Speculation is what you do while you're 
waiting for evidence, because there isn't enough evidence 
yet for proof. 


Sterling K. Webb 
------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Shawn Alan" <photophlow at yahoo.com> 
To: <meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com> 
Sent: Friday, July 23, 2010 10:33 PM 
Subject: [meteorite-list] Its official! NWA 6291 "The King 
ofAngrites"forsale - AD 


Hello Sterling and Listers, 

Sterling, thank you for your input about Angrites "might" have a 
connection with Mercury by saying Vesta quote un quote...... 

"Vesta did not .....form where it is. No Way." 

Know I am kinda confused with Vesta and your connection or lack of 
connection to this topic, but I am going to make an educated guess of 
why you might have suggested Vesta in the first place. 

This whole topic pulls from Angrites and the possible connections they 
might have with Mercury. I am going to zero in on one meteorite, NWA 
2999 because it seems that there has been more research done on this 
meteorite compared to other Angrites. 

One observation of why some scientist feel that NWA 2999 "might" be from 
Mercury is that NWA 2999 meteorite has gone through a vertical tectonics 
process, which occurs on Earth and Mercury. In addition to this vertical 
tectonic process....... 

Papike et al. [9] 
suggested that angrites might be samples from 
Mercury based on volatile depletion, and systematics 
of plagioclase compositions and Fe/Mn ratios in 
mafic minerals. 

http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2006/pdf/1344.pdf 

Now Sterling, is this the reason why you brought Vesta into this 
equation, because its a differentiated body and the vertical tectonic 
process might have happened on Vesta? Or its because you feel that Vesta 
some how moved from one side of the hood to the other side because of 
the iron core being too big for where Vesta is located at? 

Lets change the topic and focus on your statement on how you feel about 
Vesta, quote un quote ...... 

"Vesta did not .....form where it is. No Way." 


Now this would be a perfect example to use this quote Greg Lindh....... 

This reminds me of a quote by Mark Twain. The quote follows: 

"There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale 
returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact." 

Something to think about.... 


Iron meteorites tell their own tale. These meteorites 
come from asteroids that became hot enough to melt 
and differentiate. The most plausible source of heat 
was the decay of short-lived isotopes, especially 26Al. 
Melting must have occurred while was still abundant, 
which means these asteroids took something like 2 
Myr to form [19,20]. Why did some asteroids melt 
when others did not? Presumably, different stages of 
planet and asteroid formation occurred concurrently in 
the same region of the nebula. Some objects formed 
earlier than others, and their subsequent thermal 
evolution was different as a result. 

http://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/users/wisdom/extrasolar/chambers.pdf 

I think this pulled abstract could explain your educated guess of why 
you think Vesta had accreted somewhere else besides where it is :) My 
guess is that when differentiation occured, that with some parent body 
the process was more prevalent because there might have been an abundant 
amount of 26Al , which this short lived isotope produces alot of heat 
which would be a good environment for differentiation to take place aka 
in Vesta :) but thats my suggestion and some science to back it up :) 




Shawn Alan 



[meteorite-list] Its official! NWA 6291 "The King ofAngrites"for sale - 
ADSterling K. Webb sterling_k_webb at sbcglobal.net 
Thu Jul 22 17:03:44 EDT 2010 


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Martin, Jason, Shawn, &c., 

The fly or flaw in the ointment, the paper, and the 
responses is an unspoken but apparently universal 
assumption that every sizeable body in the solar 
system currently resides at the same address where 
it accreted originally. 

What about a body that accretes in the 0.50 AU block, 
then moves 'way up the street and out to the 2.35 AU 
neighborhood? Like say, Vesta. Now, I'm not saying 
Vesta did that, you know, fled from the 'hood and 
moved to the suburbs... I just saying Vesta did not 
form where it is. 

No Way. 

Models that "fit" Vesta propose a iron core of about 
http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2010/pdf/2129.pdf 
300 kilometers out of an original spherical body of 
540 km. diameter. Such a body HAS to have accreted 
much, much closer to the Sun. I repeat, No Way. 

So, isotopic data that tell you where a body accreted 
MIGHT tell you everything you need to know about the 
place or it MIGHT tell you nothing of any use whatsoever. 

Even the old notion about the distribution of iron cores 
in the inner solar system is wrong. Decades ago, we 
assumed bigger iron cores in close, getting smoothly 
smaller as you moved out from the Sun. Then, we 
discovered that Venus' core is proportionally much 
smaller than the Earth's, and that Mars core is puny. 

Then, when we moved to the theory of the Moon being 
formed by a giant "impact," or graze, or embrace, all 
the models said we had two cores -- our original core 
and the core captured from the big proto-Moon. Mercury 
too shows evidence of such a collision (although no 
moon resulted). 

All of a sudden, Venus and Mars have "normal" cores. 
The Earth is cheating -- it's packing an extra halfcore 
in its hip pocket, and Mercury has two cores-worth of 
core. Venus and Mars that are normal respectable planets, 
and Earth and Mercury are "core-snatchers." 

A simple question like "what should a meteorite from 
Mercury be like?" is not a simple question. First, if 
Mercury suffered a giant impact early on, then its 
present crust (and upper mantle and maybe more) 
is derived from the impacting body. And that Big 
Whacker accreted... where? Nearby? Faraway? 
In-between? 

Then, there is the case of a parent body of some 
size blasted off the ORIGINAL primordial crust (and 
mantle) of Mercury by the giant impact, finding a new 
orbit, and providing enigmatic meteorites for the next 
billions of years. That original Mercurian crust could 
have been quite different from the present crust. 

As Jason pointed out, there were a gaggle of large 
differentiated bodies in the early system. I go with 
the "hundreds" rather than 30-40; see the work by 
SwRI that suggests 100+ of them from the inner 
solar system ended up in the Asteroid zone. The 
Zone is made up of "natives" and a horde of refugees, 
which could have accreted pretty much anywhere 
and will each have a unique formation history all 
their own. 

Present arguments are somewhat simple-minded. 
It's going to take centuries to sort out the life history 
of every body big enough to bother with. 

It's going to be fun. 


Sterling K. Webb 
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Martin Altmann" <altmann at meteorite-martin.de> 
To: <meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com> 
Sent: Thursday, July 22, 2010 6:00 AM 
Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] Its official! NWA 6291 "The King 
ofAngrites"for sale - AD 


Huh, I found even a paper, which postulates, that the HEDs are from 
Mercury 
and the angrites from Venus.... 

http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/otp2004/pdf/3012.pdf 



;-) 
Martin 



-----Ursprüngliche Nachricht----- 
Von: meteorite-list-bounces at meteoritecentral.com 
[mailto:meteorite-list-bounces at meteoritecentral.com] Im Auftrag von 
Jason 
Utas 
Gesendet: Donnerstag, 22. Juli 2010 11:27 
An: Shawn Alan; Meteorite-list; Adam Hupe 
Betreff: Re: [meteorite-list] Its official! NWA 6291 "The King of 
Angrites"for sale - AD 

Shawn, 
Well-said - 
But I can't emphasize enough the fact that such large bodies existed 
in large numbers in the early solar system. That much is obvious from 
the large numbers of ungrouped (and grouped) differentiated 
achondrites that we have in our collections here on earth, as well as 
from all various types of iron meteorites, which represent the cores 
of diffeentiated planetismals. All in all, we have meteorites that 
suggest well over 30-40 such bodies in the early solar system, and 
computer-run models in some cases suggest hundreds of such bodies. 

http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/education/events/cowen1d.html 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formation_and_evolution_of_the_Solar_System#For 
mation_of_planets 

Note that wikipedia suggests 50-100 such bodies. I wouldn't usually 
reference wikipedia for something like this, but see references 35-36 
for the article - that's actually a decent estimate that's been backed 
up by some serious work done by experts -- it's not just a crap 
wikipedia reference. 

So, angrites may be from Mercury. If we say that, regardless of their 
composition and history, they just needed to be from a large 
planetismal capable of some metamorphic activity, then we've got a 
1/50 to 1/100 chance that angrites are, in fact, from Mercury. 

The trouble is that their chemistry and age suggest that they're not 
from Mercury. 

I agree. They *might* be from Mercury. And yes, some smart people 
have said that they *might* be from Mercury. 
But it seems to me that this article is being deemed credible because 
of its authors, and not because of what it actually says. 



>I do not refute Melinda Hutson's article that was never peer reviewed 



>and 


contains several errors according to the classifying scientists. I 
asked 
scientists about the article and they stated, it is obvious that she 
didn't 
read 
the original peer reviewed abstract carefully, even mistaking the type 
of 
petrology that was discussed using formulas that simply do not apply to 
the 
texture NWA 2999 exhibits. 

I'd like to know what these errors were, and how the error might have 
affected her conclusions. Perhaps Adam or someone else would be 
willing to explain her errors and how they suggest that angrites are 
actually from Mercury. 

Seems like this is the perfect sort of topic for the list... 

Regards, 
Jason 




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