Hi John, Just a gentle request to resist the urge to parrot NASA's erroneous (and mildly self-serving) labeling of Vesta as a "protoplanet". Vesta will never evolve into a planet via accretion, so while one might have optimistically called it a protoplanet 4+ billion years ago, that window of opportunity has long since closed. To label it as such is simply an anacronism; it is an asteroid, and nothing more.
Cheers, Rob -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]]On Behalf Of John Lutzon Sent: Friday, July 22, 2011 8:50 PM To: brian burrer Cc: [email protected] Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] Is Vesta Mong Nong? Hello List, I don't know what i don't know---so: The latest photo of Vesta shows about 1/2 of this protoplanet which is about 350 miles in diameter and the largest crater looks approximately 1/10 0f this radius which means the crater dia. is about 17.5 miles--quite a hit for such a little guy. I remember seeing a photo of a much smaller asteroid with an impact crater of about 1/3 to 1/2 the size of the whole thing and wonder why it wasn't cracked in half or completely obliterated. So, are impact forces mitigated when an object is not in a tightly bound orbit confiscation and just gets "pushed" rather than crushed? John ______________________________________________ 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
