[meteorite-list] www.venusmeteorite.com - What is a meteoroid?

From: Randall Gregory <randall_gregory_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Fri, 16 Feb 2007 10:08:53 -0800 (PST)
Message-ID: <116640.26280.qm_at_web52107.mail.yahoo.com>

  MeteoriteKid,
   
  You wrote:

  "With 'meteoroids,' however, (the definition of which tends to mean dust-sized,"
   
  That implied my using the term meteoroid was incorrect, however that was not what I found searching for the actual definition.
   
   
  Wikipedia:
  The current International Astronomical Union (IAU) definition dates back to the XIth General Assembly, held in 1961:
    
   "A solid object moving in interplanetary space, of a size considerably smaller than an asteroid and considerably larger than an atom or molecule." As a result of the inexorable progress of instrumentation, this definition is now deemed by many as unacceptably vague. The most common definition was proposed in 1995 [1] and sets the size limits of meteoroids to between 100 ?m and 10 m across. Larger than that, the object is an asteroid; smaller than that, it is interplanetary dust.
   
  #2 NASA website "How do you get so much energy out of a 3-inch meteoroid? "Leonids travel fast?about 144,000 mph," he explains. "At that speed, even a 3-inch rock packs tremendous energy."
   
  I believe I was correct in using the term "meteoroid".
   
  Randall

 
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Received on Fri 16 Feb 2007 01:08:53 PM PST