Meteoritical evidence and constraints on asteroid impacts and disruption

    Authors

    G. Consolmagno;D. T. Britt

    Comments

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    Abbreviated Journal Title

    Planet Space Sci.

    Keywords

    asteroids; meteorites; catastrophic impacts; CHONDRITE PARENT BODY; IRON-METEORITES; EXPOSURE AGES; BLACK; FRAGMENTATION; POROSITIES; DENSITIES; Astronomy & Astrophysics

    Abstract

    Impact events have played a central role in the life of meteorites. They compacted and lithified the dust from which meteorites are made; produced shock minerals, shock melting, and shock blackening of meteoritic minerals on their parent bodies; turned their parent bodies into rubble; and dispersed at least some pieces of this rubble, sending them to Earth as meteorites. Thus, as well as owing their very existence to the occurrence of catastrophic disruptions, meteorites contain physical ground truth concerning the impact and disruption environment of the solar system. Reviewing these aspects of the impact-meteorite connection, we conclude that impacts severe enough to disrupt asteroids were rare in the earliest stages of the solar nebula, when meteorite parent bodies accreted and were lithified. Likewise, though catastrophic disruptions clearly have occurred over the past several billion years, the small number of exposure events seen in the meteoritic cosmic ray age record indicates that such disruptions at these times also were rare. However, catastrophic disruptions must have been very prevalent during the first billion years of the solar system, resulting in the widespread asteroid macroporosity inferred from the comparison of asteroid bulk densities to meteorite grain densities. (C) 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

    Journal Title

    Planetary and Space Science

    Volume

    52

    Issue/Number

    12

    Publication Date

    1-1-2004

    Document Type

    Article; Proceedings Paper

    Language

    English

    First Page

    1119

    Last Page

    1128

    WOS Identifier

    WOS:000224886900007

    ISSN

    0032-0633

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