[meteorite-list] Earth Impacts & Soft Landings

From: impactearth_at_space.com <impactearth_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Apr 22 09:52:09 2004
Message-ID: <20020808155743.8711.h003.c000.wm_at_mail.space.com.criticalpath.net>

You seem much more educated than myself on this, but,
off the top of my head, I think there is one thing that
would prevent that.....the earths gravity

Ray








"chris sharp" wrote:

>
> Hello all from Terra Australis
>
> I recently downloaded an interesting article on impact
> cratering, 130
> pages with lots of images and discussion on the
current
> science.
>
> <a
href="http://mail.space.com//jump/http://www.lpi.usra.edu/publications/books/CB-954/CB-954.intro.html">http://www.lpi.usra.edu/publications/books/CB-954/CB-954.intro.html</a>
>
> As all members realize Earth has been impacted many
> times in the past
> and this article points out that these impacts have
> shaped the earth
> and its biology much more than was realized in the
> past. The article
> points out most of the craters have been discovered in
> the last 50
> years.
>
> I have a question for the list:
>
> Is it possible that a large body with cosmic velocity
> could have a
> &quot;soft touchdown&quot; on Earth? ie not come in
25km/s and be
> explosively
> disintegrated by the enormous kinetic energy that
comes
> with such a
> large, high speed mass.
>
> I could imagine a situation where the relative
> velocities between an
> impactor and the Earth were &lt;1 km/s so long as the
> impactor approached
> on the same track as the Earth's orbit around the sun.
>
> eg Earth's velocity vector is 30km/s, impactor's
> velocity vector is
> 30.5 km/s in the same direction as the Earths leading
> to a net 0.5km/s
> which would remain relatively constant as it
&quot;drifted&quot;
> in, leading to
> a relatively &quot;soft landing&quot;.
>
> One example might be the monolith Ayres Rock in
Central
> Australia.
>
> chris sharp
> (not sure of the current exchange rate but its not
> getting any better)
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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Received on Thu 08 Aug 2002 06:57:41 PM PDT