Questions tagged [meteorites]
Questions about objects that enter the Earth's atmosphere from space.
31 questions
3 votes
0 answers
112 views
How many Earth meteorites have been intentionally returned to space?
Wikipedia's meteorite defines one as ...a rock that originated in outer space and has fallen to the surface of a planet or moon. I know of two meteorites recovered from Earth's surface for which at ...
user12102
0 votes
0 answers
139 views
Azimuth and Altitude of a Meteor Shower
What is a reliable source to understand the Azimuth and Altitude of a meteor shower at a specific geographic location at an instant of time for observation?
- 31
4 votes
1 answer
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Are there occurrances of monel (nickel-copper) meteorite materials?
This question is prompted by a Space.com article on the metallic Psyche asteroid - Wendy Caldwell, a scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory, told Space.com that some of her most promising ...
- 1,141
1 vote
0 answers
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Will Ataxite be the type of nickel-iron sought for asteroid mining?
The high value metals in meteorites and asteroids - mostly Platinum Group Metals - appear associated with the nickel content (The Occurrence of Platinum in Meteorites, F. G. Hawley,1939), ie the ...
- 1,141
6 votes
2 answers
177 views
What is the methodology to determine a meteorite strike vs space debris?
From this tweet, it seems the ISS Soyuz that sprung a leak in December was damaged by a micrometeorite Here's little bit more info on Soyuz MS-22 impact. The trajectory analysis very strongly points ...
- 8,236
0 votes
1 answer
158 views
Where are the meteorite remnants related to the craters they've produced on the moon?
On Earth, in every crater there's usually at least some remnant of a meteorite. But with all the craters on the Moon, where are the meteorites in the middle of them?
- 111
6 votes
3 answers
409 views
How much more likely is it for a colony on Mars to receive a damaging meteorite hit than a similar structure on Earth?
Meteorite damage probability is low both on Mars and Earth, but Earth has a thick atmosphere, which Mars does not. The thinner atmosphere on Mars should yield some increase of impact probability. Is ...
- 733
7 votes
1 answer
239 views
Did the rovers' cruise balance masses have a noticeable impact on Mars?
Perseverance (2021) and Curiosity (2012) each ejected, among many other things, two tungsten "cruise balance masses" before reaching Mars's atmosphere, each about 70 kg. Were their impacts ...
- 12.5k
3 votes
1 answer
168 views
Does Perseverance's SuperCam include a Martian meteorite? If so, why?
An automotive blog claims that There actually seems to be another Martian meteorite being sent to Mars, as part of the SuperCam calibration target. Shouldn’t we be keeping all the Mars rocks we have ...
- 12.5k
11 votes
1 answer
2k views
What is the danger of creating micrometeorite clouds orbiting the Moon by constantly landing spacecrafts on its surface?
It is a well-known fact that when meteorite hits surface of the Moon, a part of debris can end up on Earth because the escape velocity for Moon is low - 2.38km/s. A similar effect can be achieved by ...
- 2,351
4 votes
0 answers
292 views
Is Earth's Moon gaining or losing mass?
The Earth gains mass from dust/meteors (and a tiny, tiny bit to increasing temperatures/energy), but loses mass from hydrogen/helium escaping and nuclear reactions. It's estimated to have a net loss ...
- 343
2 votes
1 answer
251 views
How long can a high altitude balloon fly before a meteor hits it?
The balloon has a lighter than air gas in it. It flies at 30 km above sea level. It is spherical, with a radius not exceeding five hundred meters. How long can it fly before a meteor pokes a hole in ...
- 29
-1 votes
1 answer
712 views
99.99% pure iron meteorite [closed]
[![enter image description here][1]][1] I have a 99.99% pure iron meteorite. It is 4,902 grams.
4 votes
2 answers
468 views
How was the 18 December 2018 Bering Sea Fireball detected and characterized? Was it a serendipity or a weather satellite?
The map at Fireball and Bolide Data is reproduced in the BBC News article US detects huge meteor explosion with the 2013 Chelyabinsk event and the recent 18-Dec0281 Bering Sea event annotated. The ...
user12102
4 votes
2 answers
412 views
What do the insulation and meteorite protection layers being opened on the Soyuz MS-09 spacecraft look like?
This current news item in TASS Russian cosmonaut Kononenko approaches Soyuz MS-09 spacecraft for inspection says: Earlier in the day, the two Russian cosmonauts began their six-hour spacewalk, ...
user12102