[meteorite-list] Cold Asteroids May Have A Soft Heart(AllendeMeteorite)

[Richard Montgomery]

Hi List...I want to clarify that Elton did not specifically write me that 
"ALL of the largest asteroids have already been located" and I want to go on 
record to acknowledge this and apologize if I took his words out of context.

It is an honor to read from you all!

Richard Montgomery




----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Richard A. Kowalski" <kowalski at lpl.arizona.edu>
To: "Meteorite List" <meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com>
Sent: Wednesday, April 13, 2011 10:00 PM
Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] Cold Asteroids May Have A Soft 
Heart(AllendeMeteorite)


> [My original post from my yahoo address got bounced as spam, so I'll try 
> it from here.]
>
>
> Elton,
>
> I am no expert in asteroid families, but possibly I can give a general 
> answer and cite a paper that may be of interest while we wait for a real 
> expert like Larry to respond.
>
> A paper that I believe should be available to all online is:
> "Impact origin of the Vesta family" by Erik Asphaug, published in 
> Meteoritics & Planetary Science 32,965-980 (1997)
>
> http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1945-5100.1997.tb01584.x/pdf
>
> I'm a bit busy validating NEO candidates at the moment so can't take the 
> time to read the entire paper, but in a nutshell Ashpaug discusses a 
> mechanism that created the Vesta family of asteroids about 10 - 100 
> million years ago.
>
> While HEDs are almost certainly from Vesta the uncertainty about this 
> comes from the fact that we are sensing the surface from great distance. 
> When DAWN arrives, I'm sure the answer will become definitive and as I 
> mentioned in a previous thread, we may even be able to pinpoint where some 
> of our meteorites originated. Exciting stuff coming in the next few months 
> to be sure!
>
> Most specifically to this question, that of other possible source parents, 
> it is my belief that this is unlikely. The formation of the Vesta family 
> was a major impact event. We certainly have not sampled spectroscopically 
> every asteroid, and I'm sure that we have not yet found every member of 
> the family, mostly due to size, brightness and circumstance. Small chunks 
> of Vesta in earth crossing orbits, say 10 meters in diameter, the size 
> that can drop tens of kilos on the earth's surface, are very difficult to 
> detect. In fact something this size may only be detected a few days before 
> impact, if at all.
>
> It is my personal opinion that all HEDs can be traced back to Vesta and 
> most if not all "Vesta-like" V-type asteroids can be traced back to Vesta 
> as well.
>
> More rocks coming through the pipeline, so that's all for now.
>
> Cheers
> -- 
> Richard Kowalski
> Catalina Sky Survey
> Lunar and Planetary Laboratory
> University of Arizona
> http://www.lpl.arizona.edu/css/
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