Dave-
The interior temperature of the parent body will likely not be extreme. From
a practical standpoint, space has no temperature. A body absorbs energy from
the Sun, and radiates it to space (with a background temperature of a few
kelvins).
An iron body will probably have a warm temperature when it encounters the
Earth. Iron is a very efficient absorber of long wavelengths, which make up
about half of the output of the Sun. It is a much less efficient radiator.
An object that hits the Earth will likely have spent a reasonable time at a
distance of 1 AU from the Sun. Think how hot a piece of iron gets sitting in
the Sun.
A stony body will be cooler, because it doesn't absorb radiation as
efficiently. Its interior will probably be somewhat colder than freezing-
but still not extreme from the standpoint of human touch.
None of this matters much for typical small meteorites (up to a few tens of
centimeters). At that size, the convective cooling experienced while falling
through cold air at ~100 m/s will largely determine the final temperature.
You might want to search back a year or so in the archives. This was
discussed in detail, complete with various solutions to the Stefan-Boltzmann
equation.
Chris
*****************************************
Chris L Peterson
Cloudbait Observatory
http://www.cloudbait.com
----- Original Message -----
From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "Chris Peterson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; "Meteorite Mailing List"
<[email protected]>
Sent: Wednesday, January 18, 2006 12:55 PM
Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] Stardust SRC Hot to the touch?
Has anyone considered that a very cold object will also "burn" your hands
and thus feel hot. Try picking up something that has been in a tank of
liquid nitrogen and try to tell if it is hot or cold.
A meteorite travelling for eons in near absolute zero should have an
interior temperature very very cold. Afterall, it only spends a few
seconds going through an atmosphere where friction can supply any energy.
Any thermodynamicists out there?
Dave
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