Thanks to everybody for their enlightening posts on this question....answering many aspects that I had wondered about....an interesting thread.
Graham On Tue, Feb 26, 2013 at 2:59 PM, Chris Peterson <[email protected]> wrote: > To elaborate on Rob's and Larry's comments, a further complication is that > asteroids are placed into classes based on two major criteria: orbit and > composition. The orbital classifications (like Apollo) are mainly determined > by ratios of specific orbital elements. The compositional classes are > primarily determined by spectral characteristics, and are often the classes > of most interest to meteorite enthusiasts, given the ability to connect many > meteorites to specific asteroid spectral families (e.g. V type asteroids are > associated with HED meteorites). Only in a handful of cases do we have a > recovered orbit for a meteorite fall, allowing for the possibility of > recognizing the parent body's orbital classification as well. > > Chris > > ******************************* > Chris L Peterson > Cloudbait Observatory > http://www.cloudbait.com > > > On 2/26/2013 4:26 AM, [email protected] wrote: >> >> Hi Graham: >> >> I am far from an asteroid dynamics person, but many (but not all) asteroid >> families tend to share compositional similarities and so may very well be >> remnants of larger objects that have "recently" been broken up in a >> collisional event. The families are usually (but not always) named for >> their largest member. This is important in that if members of these >> families are in the "right place" in the asteroid belt, their members' >> orbits may be perturbed over time into Earth-crossing orbits and then >> Earth-impacting orbits, so that they may be the sources of some of the >> meteorites we see. >> >> Connecting individual asteroids to classes of meteorites is another story! >> >> Larry > > > ______________________________________________ > > Visit the Archives at http://www.meteorite-list-archives.com > Meteorite-list mailing list > [email protected] > http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list ______________________________________________ Visit the Archives at http://www.meteorite-list-archives.com Meteorite-list mailing list [email protected] http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
