[meteorite-list] What's the highest meteorite ever found?

From: Phil <Phil_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Apr 22 09:43:33 2004
Message-ID: <000201c110db$d7d61ba0$6643989e_at_t7f8c6>

> I have wondered if meteorites are more likely to be found at higher
> altatudes than at lower altitudes. The idea of course is that if you
> are 3 or 4 kilomiters up the rock has 3 or 4 km less of atmosphere
> to burn - and also eliminating the thickest
> portion of atmosphere. (Which immeadiately leads to a second theory -
> which is, are you more likely to find smaller meteorites at higher
> altitudes that are almost burned totally away and would not have
> made it another 4000 meters).
> From what I understand there is no real evidence to support this

That's hardly surprising. Most meteorites do not "burn up" at such low
altitudes. Ablation normally ceases at much higher altitudes because the
atmosphere acts as a brake, slowing the meteoroid to only a fraction of its
entry velocity and well below the speed necessary for ablation and
ionisation to take place.

Phil Bagnall
Received on Thu 19 Jul 2001 06:06:30 PM PDT