Meteorite from Mercury?

texchanchan writes "The BBC reports that a chunk of rock, clearly from space, might have originated on Mercury. Analysis of its chemical makeup leads to this tentative conclusion. Specifically, it seems to have originated on something with 'a core of molten iron [and] an outer covering of silicon and aluminium that formed a basaltic crust.' This meteorite classification site sticks to the earlier theory that NWA 011 is from a Vesta-like source."

Comments

Re:Am I missing something??? Nope...regrettably

[rde]

The impression I got from the BBC article was that the meteorite came from a body considerably larger than Vesta. I'm not sure how that oxygen-isotope thingy they're talking about works, but if it's deficient in the chunkier elements, that would imply - to my mind - that it came from a big-assed body. If that's the case - and we can assume it's not from the moon or Mars - then it must've come from a really big asteroid, or from Mercury.

So people're inferring that it's from Mercury through a process of elimination. Seems reasonable to me.

Doesn't anyone think these claims are bogus?

[Ashurbanipal]

Oooh, this chunk of rock came from Mars! This one's from Mercury! Hey, this one's from the planet KRYPTON! (is it green or red I wonder?)

All this stuff seems to be based on what Frazer called "the magical laws of similarity and contagion" rather than real science. I tried to link Frazer's magnum opus The Golden Bough here but /. wouldn't take the huge bn.com link.

It's a logical fallacy to assume that object A was once a part of object B simply because they share the same composition; in fact it's a bad idea to blindly assume object A came from B even if A is identical to an object you know came from object B!

Pseudo-scientific psychobabble by fuzzy thinkers in search of grant money? Or just bad reporting?