The shield is clearly protecting against meteoroids. I don't think this
is ambiguous at all. Similarly, one might want to protect Earth from
asteroid impacts, but you would not say it needed protection from
meteorites. It isn't the leftover bits that present the hazard... it is
the incoming projectiles you have to guard against.
Jeff
On 8/20/2012 11:44 AM, Chris Peterson wrote:
This does not make the terms well defined. It is only a proposal for a
more complex set of definitions. And even if widely adopted, it does
not remove the ambiguity in the case of this protective space shelter.
If the shelter is struck by a meteoroid, which then vaporizes, was it
a "meteoroid shelter" or "meteorite shelter"? If the shelter is struck
by a meteoroid, and material survives (either on the surface, or
inside), was it a "meteoroid shelter" or a "meteorite shelter"?
Maybe it is both, or maybe neither. But I don't see any problem with
the terms used, either in the context of current IAU definitions,
colloquial usage, or the terms proposed by Rubin and Grossman. Clearly
there is ambiguity here, since the shield is protective whether or not
any material actually accretes from a collision. Most important, I
think, is that the meaning is absolutely clear and unambiguous, which
is really the ultimate test of usage.
What would you call such a shelter?
Chris
*******************************
Chris L Peterson
Cloudbait Observatory
http://www.cloudbait.com
On 8/20/2012 9:25 AM, Randy Korotev wrote:
Meteorite and meteoroid are, indeed, well defined.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1945-5100.2009.01009.x/abstract
Randy Korotev
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