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Re: Exotic meteorites? (was: Origins)

Hi Julien and all,

I'll take a stab at answering these questions.

 My first question would be: I have seen several explanations from where do the 
meteorites originate (asteroid belt, moon, mars, comets), but I've never 
heard or read any of the following explanations:
>  
> - Planetary rings (a piece of Saturn's rings would be sooo cool in my 
> collection)

In order to obtain a meteoroid from another locality of the solar system we 
need a good delivery mechanism. Basically this is gravity and Jupiter is one 
reason why we have meteorites at all due to perpetration. Anything close to a 
large planet (like rings) would have to escape the gravity of Saturn and make 
it pass Jupiter without being altered into a new orbit. It is because of strong 
gravity that the likely hood of finding something from Saturn,Saturn's Moons 
are not very probable. Too much escape velocity is needed to leave. 

> - Planetary volcanoes ejectas (Io would be a very good candidate, but there 
> are some more)

Again I doubt that anything as close to Jupiter as Io is will ever leave that 
planets system due to the great gravity. The volcanos on Io are due to this 
friction from Jupiter that keeps it active when most moons that size (like our 
moon) are long dead.

> - Solar ejectas

We certainly get solar particles. I don't know of anything larger but there 
could be I suppose. 

> - Extra-solar meteorites (I know, Allende have some CAl inclusions, but I'm 
> speaking here of a _meteorite_ )

The odds of ever capturing an extra-solar object is really astronomical. For 
one thing it has been predicted that these objects would have a much much 
higher energy speed. In the event one did fall on Earth (and not in the ocean) 
the high velocity would probably distroy it due to the collision with the 
Earth's atmosphere. The chances over all for it to survive and reach here are 
very poor and with all of the other target planets and oort belt and so on, I'm 
not too optimistic. I am sure this could be figured mathematically but the 
Solar System may not be around that long for such an object to arrive :-)

--AL

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