Chris Peterson asked: "What would you call such a shelter?"
You would call it a bunker.
Dennis
-----Original Message-----
From: Jeff Grossman
Sent: Monday, August 20, 2012 9:57 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] Vernacular of "Meteorite"
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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