Rob: Thanks for sharing the news and congratulations to Dorothy Norton.
Greg S. ---------------------------------------- > Date: Fri, 3 Dec 2010 14:17:10 -0800 > From: [email protected] > To: [email protected] > Subject: [meteorite-list] Minor planet (149243) Dorothynorton > > Hi All, > > A little good news to share with the list on a Friday afternoon: > > The following citation is from MPC 71351 > > (149243) Dorothynorton = 2002 RL239 > Dorothy S. Norton (b. 1945) is a scientific illustrator > specializing > in astronomy, geology and paleontology. Her illustrations have appeared > in > the National Geographic magazine, the popular meteorite book Rocks > from Space and Ice Age Mammals of North America. > > - - - - - > > I thought I sent a message about Dorothy's namesake to the List a few > months ago when her citation became official, but it apparently never > appeared. > > As I wrote Dorothy back in July, it is a member of Main Belt I, and has > a size somewhere between 1.2 and 2.2 km (the uncertainty driven by the > range of possible reflectivities). If the asteroid were spherical (which > of course, it isn't), it would have a volume in the range of 0.9-5.5 > billion cubic meters. For fun, if you assume an ordinary chondrite bulk > density of ~3.1 g/cm^3, that's a mass somewhere in the range of 2.8 to > 17 > billion metric tons. (That's quite a lot of meteorites!) > > To see what the orbit of Dorothy's asteroid looks like in 3D, use the > following link: > > http://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/sbdb.cgi?sstr=149243;orb=1;cov=0;log=0;cad=0#orb > > (It takes a little while for the Java script to load.) The next close > approach to earth will be in late January 2011, at a distance of about > 1.08 a.u., which will be its closest approach since 2004. > > Cheers! > Rob > ______________________________________________ > Visit the Archives at > http://www.meteoritecentral.com/mailing-list-archives.html > Meteorite-list mailing list > [email protected] > http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list ______________________________________________ Visit the Archives at http://www.meteoritecentral.com/mailing-list-archives.html Meteorite-list mailing list [email protected] http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
