[meteorite-list] Re: Possible Meteors from Mars?

From: Marco Langbroek <marco.langbroek_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Apr 22 10:28:20 2004
Message-ID: <008b01c388fd$ccac1940$44c6ea3e_at_HAL>

> A recent thread on the meteorite-list suggested a possible martian
> meteoroid stream with a maximum on October 3rd. List member Steve Schoner
> suggested this, and pointed out that two famous martian meteorite falls,
> Chassigny (1815), and Zagami (1962) fell on this date. No location of a
> possible radiant was given, but maybe someone on this last can calculate
> a theoretical radiant.

I like the idea, but the point is, I cannot conceive of any kind of orbital
mechanics that would deliver Martian meteorites to earth in the form of a
concise stream. A stream results when debris is trailing a parent object in
similar orbits, e.g. trailing an (near-earth orbit) asteroid or comet.
Ordinary meteorites can have an origin in a near-earth asteroid. But Martian
meteorites by definition do not. It is debris thrown away from the Martian
surface in presumably widely varying trajectories. I cannot conceive of any
mechanism which would cause this to form a compact stream. It would require
an asteroid-sized body of SNC composition in a Near Earth orbit with debris
originating on this body (and not Mars itself) trailing it and I don't see
how that would be possible, for debris originating from an impact on Mars.
If SNC meteorites would really form a stream, then this in fact might
indicate that Mars is NOT their parent object. Unless someone from the
impact-scientists can point out the likelyness of an impact on Mars throwing
a significantly *large* body (i.e. asteroid size) into a NEA orbit. Just my
2 cents worth of thoughts on this. Comments welcome.

- Marco

PS: I fully second the call to be alert for fireballs these days. There is
something odd with these late september-early october fireballs over the
years. Only observational data can determine whether it is a stream.

------
Marco Langbroek
Leiden, the Netherlands
52.15896 N, 4.48884 E (WGS 84)

meteorites_at_dmsweb.org
http://home.wanadoo.nl/marco.langbroek
------
Received on Thu 02 Oct 2003 11:56:49 AM PDT