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Strange Asteroids Baffle Scientists
Raver32 writes to mention that two nearby asteroids may be evidence of a new class of asteroid or long eroded mini-world. Mineral evidence gathered using photometric data shows these asteroids to contain basalt not normally found in asteroid belt objects. "The lack of basalt and another mineral, olivine, in asteroid belt objects has long puzzled scientists. These two minerals would have formed the crust and mantle, respectively, of belt objects the size of Vesta or larger; theory predicts that more than half of all asteroids should be composed of one or the other of these substances"
That's no asteroid....
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
When the facts don't fit the theory, maybe it's time to re-evaluate the theory.
init 11 - for when you need that edge.
I just wish people in other fields, politics, religion, law, philosophy, etc would admit when they are baffled as readily as the scientists do. For all the amount of explanations they offer and advance understanding of nature, these scientists seem to delight on admitting they are baffled at the drop of a hat.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
a lot of objects in the solar system were liquid at some point and could grow very large until collisions broke the pieces apart. that and some solar system formation models predict the jovian worlds had migrated, it could very well be that something large did form before the jovian worlds disrupted the region where the asteroid belt is which could cause collisions to happen frequently enough to destroy a very large object.
Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
These are aliens from mars... risen from the ashes (basalt)
Bored with the martian landscape, they're on a 'world' tour.
i live on an alternate planet
"News at 11" Meteorite collectors knew that there are more than "Vestoids" out there And indeed, one of these strange pieces is called... NWA 011
My sedentary job gives me frequent cases of Asteroids ,I have no clue what color they are, but Damn they hurt!!
They now believe that some asteroids are derived from larger, planet-like bodies? Now the question arises, what happened to these bodies to cause their current state of being?
Karma Whoring for Fun and Profit.
objects by mineral content and reaction?
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
That the asteroid belt isnt just "leftovers" from the formation of the inner planets, but was a planet at some point in time that was very unstable due to tidal forces between the sun and jupiter, and each time jupiter's orbit matched the planet's orbit, it created tidal forces that slowly made the planet more unstable by each pass until the planet because too unstable to remain in any shape. it probably wasnt even a sphere by this point.
Another proof for the FSM!
RAmen!
Ignore this signature. By order.
If you don't know the answer yet, you can apply for funding. Funding is difficult to procure, however, and next to impossible if the answers are already known.
More music, fewer hits
scientists are also baffled by the basalt forming in the crust of Uranus
Meh, as long it is not slowing down, I am not worried.
You know it makes sense, a little reminder from jointm1k.
maybe that little triangular spaceship finally made his way and succeeded blowing some asteroids up.
Faster than a Speeding Byte!
Or some evil planet from the Fifth Element??
Geology - it's not rocket science; it's rock science
Outer? I only heard of one, the one on the other side of Mars. There's the Kupier belt outside Pluto's orbit... A wikipedia search of "outer asteroid belt" revealed nothing about this.
How do we know wht is INSIDE the inner planets? Hell, we have two robots on Mars right now and before they were there we didn't even know if there was water on the surface or not.
So, bad writing, bad information, I'm stupid, or a combination of the three?
-mcgrew
I bet Barry Bonds would deny the existence of these asteroids in his system...
Move all sig!
Scientists baffled by rocks . . . ? I know slashdot is notorious for old news, but shit, these scientists sound cromagnon.
crap.
If these two asteroids were once the same asteroid, does that mean they are now half-assteroids?
. . . when I can get them for free almost anywhere else?
I misread the headline and immediately thought of the new Kongregate game.
God spoke to me.
IMO, this is just the glass half empty, half full debate.
What do we know for CERTAIN about the Universe? And when I reference the word 'CERTAIN', I do that with scientific discovery in mind.
When someone states that '99% of what we expect to see is missing', with regard to the Universe, I have to wonder just how arrogant a species we are.
We, the Earth, are 1 planet in a system of planets, orbiting 1 star, located between 2 spiral arms 2/3 distance from the center of a galaxy, in a local group of several galaxies, in a Universe (as far as we know it), that contains BILLIONS of galaxies and other Astronomical phenomena.
Who here among the Human race claims to know MORE than 1% about the ENTIRE UNIVERSE?????
Please, speak up say I may pummel you with your own ignorance.
It would appear as though the above 'theory' is incorrect if, up until now, very little basalt has been detected. Perhaps the material in the asteroid belt never went through the planetary formation stages necessary to form such rocks (volcanism).
The presence of this new class of material might suggest that the asteroid belt is made up of the remains of a small planet (moon perhaps) plus lots of additional garbage that never formed a planet.
Have gnu, will travel.
The Moonseed ate the olivine, of course!
I suffer from attention surplus disorder.
No, that would make them hemi-roids.
Some pineosal and we've got flying pestoline?
still on first coffee
Fuck the meteor's heading straight for our underground...old 'roid's got basalt all around...
...if you are a scientist and you don't know the answer. You're baffled. If not, you're just plain stupid I guess?
Perhaps asteroids are not what we thought they were. Someone has suggested that they come from a planet that somehow exploded (of which Mars was originally a moon, maybe). Unfortunately, people poo-poo this hypothesis because they are unimaginative boobs and cannot imagine how a planet could possibly explode.. details details.
Its interesting that, as I recall, this model led to some predictions about Mars that seemed to pan out. But then again, I don't remember anything accurately anymore, and primarily entertain myself by listening to dodgy late night radio. Thank you, pharmaceutical industry!
no sig, no plan, no clue
Let's play 20 questions...
...yes ...Yeah!!!
Is it a mineral?
Is it a tank?
The Property of One's : "The Oneitude is directly proportional to the Colditude of the one." - S.B.
If they had said that it had been determined spectroscopically, I'd understand. But photometry is simply the measure of light coming from an object, generally using specific filters. It can give a general overview of the light coming from an object, but how in the world does it definitively tell the composition?
> Non-scientists seem to have so much trouble understanding the ease with which a scientist
> will happily admit to being wrong or being surprised or baffled or just plain shocked and
> stunned.
Many non-scientist just view science as a new religion, one that just happens to be much better at delivering miracles that the older religions. So they expect scientists to act like priests, and utter absolute truths.
When discussing science versus religion, it is not the religious nuts I find most annoying, but those laypeople who believe in science as if it was a religion.
If you crave the Truth, go to a priest. Any of them will do, they all have an absolute truth to offer. But truth is no matter for science. What we can offer is predictions with a better track record than anyone else.