> A recent thread on the meteorite-list suggested a possible martian > meteoroid stream with a maximum on October 3rd. List member Steve Schoner > suggested this, and pointed out that two famous martian meteorite falls, > Chassigny (1815), and Zagami (1962) fell on this date. No location of a > possible radiant was given, but maybe someone on this last can calculate > a theoretical radiant.
I like the idea, but the point is, I cannot conceive of any kind of orbital mechanics that would deliver Martian meteorites to earth in the form of a concise stream. A stream results when debris is trailing a parent object in similar orbits, e.g. trailing an (near-earth orbit) asteroid or comet. Ordinary meteorites can have an origin in a near-earth asteroid. But Martian meteorites by definition do not. It is debris thrown away from the Martian surface in presumably widely varying trajectories. I cannot conceive of any mechanism which would cause this to form a compact stream. It would require an asteroid-sized body of SNC composition in a Near Earth orbit with debris originating on this body (and not Mars itself) trailing it and I don't see how that would be possible, for debris originating from an impact on Mars. If SNC meteorites would really form a stream, then this in fact might indicate that Mars is NOT their parent object. Unless someone from the impact-scientists can point out the likelyness of an impact on Mars throwing a significantly *large* body (i.e. asteroid size) into a NEA orbit. Just my 2 cents worth of thoughts on this. Comments welcome. - Marco PS: I fully second the call to be alert for fireballs these days. There is something odd with these late september-early october fireballs over the years. Only observational data can determine whether it is a stream. ------ Marco Langbroek Leiden, the Netherlands 52.15896 N, 4.48884 E (WGS 84) [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://home.wanadoo.nl/marco.langbroek ------ ______________________________________________ Meteorite-list mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
