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7. Relationship Between Meteorites, Asteroids and Comets

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 April 2016

Abstract

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There seem to be no objection any more to regard the asteroid belt as the past and present source of initial and intermediate parent-bodies of meteorites. Initial parent bodies were of the size of the present-day largest asteroids; the irregular size of medium sized asteroids suggests intermediate parent bodies fragmented by collisions. Finally, most of the terminal parent bodies can be identified with Earth-crossing or grazing objects. In contrast, icy planetesimals of the outer zone of the primeval nebula underwent almost no thermal evolution, but only a complicated orbital evolution leading to the comets observed now. This does not exclude the possibility that some extinct comets end up on asteroid-type orbits, although their nuclei might still contain ices covered by an insulating crust that can preserve them for a very long time. These could be the parent bodies of bolides, as opposed to meteorites.

Type
Part V. Orbital Evolution and Fragmentation of Asteroids
Copyright
Copyright © A.H. Delsemme 1977

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