and following on from that...what would an iron meteroid/aseroid look like in space....would there be any sign of metallic lustre or would space weathering have darkened the surface?
Graham Ensor ---- Eric Wichman <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi all, > > While looking at photos of our most recent extraterrestrial visitor, the > West meteorite, I was wondering what the "meteoroid" looked like while > floating around in space... Look how nice and white this piece is on the > "inside". http://www.rocksfromspace.org/133g_Interior.JPG Fusion crust > is only formed while entering our planets atmosphere. Meaning that this > meteorite was obviously whitish in color while still a meteoroid. Right? > > Space is a vacuum, and a vacuum preserves things right? Look at the moon > and all the wonderful craters and how wonderfully preserved they are. > The moon never changes color except when viewed through our atmosphere. > From space it looks the same as it did millions of years ago. > > Does this mean that the West meteoroid, while in space and "before" it > hit our planet, was white? I mean, it's not like the minerals that make > up the meteoroid change colors before hitting our planet. Right? > > I guess the reason I ask this is that we all see photos of asteroids > that are dark gray, gray-black or brown blobs of space rock floating > around the solar system. I think our perception of meteorites are quite > different. We tend to think of rocks from space as dark rocks floating > around aimlessly and randomly bumping into one another occasionally > sending pieces our way to be pulled in by our planets gravity. > > Are there huge white rocks floating around out there? And if so, > wouldn't they be slightly easier to spot than a dark blob of an asteroid? > > I hope these aren't dumb questions. > > Eric > ______________________________________________ > http://www.meteoritecentral.com > Meteorite-list mailing list > [email protected] > http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list ______________________________________________ http://www.meteoritecentral.com Meteorite-list mailing list [email protected] http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
