An asteroid's offspring.An asteroid's offspring Three classes of meteorites Meteorites See also astronomy. aerolithology the science of aerolites, whether meteoric stones or meteorites. Also called aerolitics. astrolithology the study of meteorites. Also called meteoritics. , all made of basalt but differing in other mineralogical min·er·al·o·gy n. pl. min·er·al·o·gies 1. The study of minerals, including their distribution, identification, and properties. 2. A book or treatise on mineralogy. details, may come from three asteroids This is a list of numbered minor planets, nearly all of them asteroids, in sequential order. As of late September 2007 there are 164,612 numbered minor planets, and many more not yet numbered. Most asteroids are ordinary and not particularly noteworthy. that originally formed a single large asteroid. The three meteorite meteorite, meteor that survives the intense heat of atmospheric friction and reaches the earth's surface. Because of the destructive effects of this friction, only the very largest meteors become meteorites. types -- the eucrites, howardites and diogenites -- came from an asteroid big enough for its surface rock to melt, possibly from the heat of radioactive elements inside it, concludes a team headed by Dale P. Cruikshank of NASA's Ames Research Center in Mountain View, Calif., in the January ICARUS Icarus, in Greek mythology Icarus: see Daedalus. Icarus, in astronomy Icarus, in astronomy: see asteroid. Icarus Daedalus’s son whose wings disintegrated in flight when approaching the sun. [Gk. Myth. . The team suggests that a "parent" asteroid shattered in a collision with another such chunk, forming three smaller asteroids now known as 3551, 3908 and 4055, whose orbits carry them near Earth. Cruikshank's group found the similarity between the meteorite classes and the three asteroids by comparing laboratory studies of the meteorites with infrared spectral measurements and other observations of the asteroids, made with NASA's Infrared Telescope Facility on Mauna Kea, Hawaii. |
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