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| A natural object of up to 100 m in diameter that is orbiting in space |
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| The visual phenomenon associated with the passage of a meteoroid through the Earth's atmosphere |
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| A recovered fragment of a meteoroid that has survived transit through the Earth's atmosphere |
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| Consist almost entirely of nickel-iron metal alloys, whereas stony meteroites are composed mostly of silicate and oxide minerals, although many also contain small metal grains |
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| Meteorites that have nearly equal porportions of metals and silicates |
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| One of the two categories to further determine a stony meteorite. This is a kind of cosmic sediment, an agglomeration of early solar system materials that has suffered little, if any, chemical change since its formation. |
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| The second category of stony meteorites. This is an ingenous rock, the product of partial melting (accompanied by changes in chemical composition) and crystallization. |
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| Meteorites that have fallen and then recovered |
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| Meteorites that were recovered but were not onserved to fall |
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| Interplanetary Dust Particles (IDPs) |
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| Also known as micrometeorites and are the smallest meteorites |
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When some of the melt streams along the sides to the posterior surface, where it collects and solidifies into a rouhgly textured mass and forms a conical shape
[image] |
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| Depressions in the surface of some meteorites resembling thumbprints that form during atmospheric transit. Probably caused by the violent motion of air or selective melting and ablation of certain parts of the meteoroid. |
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| A layer of solidified melt glass coating the exterior. Such glassy surfaces are very thin and form when the outside is melted by the friction of the atmosphere and is cooled when the speed slows down. |
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| Moving in a direction contrary to practically all the bodies of the solar system |
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| Moving in the same direction as other bodies in the solar system |
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| Air resistance eventually slows most meteors to the highest velocity attainable by an object as it falls through air otherwise known as terminal velocity |
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| The velocity of an object that it had in space |
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| The area where meteroites from a single fall are dispersed |
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| Meteorite Stranding Surfaces |
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| Areas where meteorites are concentrated |
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| Fragments of the same meteorites |
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| Meteors that retain some of their cosmic velocity on its way to the ground |
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| Depressions in the ground caused by hypervelocity impacts |
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| Massive meteoroids that carry tremendous amounts of kinectic energy and have potential to cause great devestation |
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| The eroded remnants of ancient craters |
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| Near-Earth Objects (NEOs) |
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| A swarm of asteroids and comets that surround the Earth |
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| Asteroids in near-Earth space are categorized as this depending on whether their orbits lie outside that of the Earth, overlap that of the Earth with peroids of greater than one year, or overlap that of the Earth with periods of less than one year |
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| Sources of meteorites and also NEOs |
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Analyzes the sunlight reflected off of the surface of asteroids, and can be used to indicate the average composition of the asteroid's surface
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| The ratio of light reflected by a surface to the incident light; a measure of the efficency of the reflection proccess. |
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| The spectrums that are reflected from asteroidal surfaces |
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| A valley in a reflectance spectrum produced by absorption of certian wavelengths of energy by asteroid surface materials |
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| Millimeter-sized spherule of rapidly cooled silicate melt, found in abundance in chondritic meteorites |
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| Atoms of a given element that differ in mass due to the loss/gain of neutrons |
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| Unstable isotopes which transform over time by loss of protons, neutrons, or electrons into more stable isotopes of other elements |
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| The new isotope that has formed from a parent isotope |
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| The time interval required for half of the remaining atoms of a radioactive isotope to decay; this must be known for radiometric age determinations |
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| A straight line on an isotope evolution diagram, defined by the isotopic compositions of related rocks or mineral grains from the same sample; the slope of this line gives the age of the rock. |
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| A sensitive instrument that measures the isotopic composition of a sample by separating ions of different mass using a large magnet to alter their trajectories |
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| A submicroscopic trail in a crystal traveled by a particle produced by rasdioactive decay; these can be used as a means of age determination |
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| Meteorites must have formed within the first few million years of solar system history commonly known as the formation interval |
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| The chemical composition of the solar system |
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| An easily volatilized substance that condenses from a gas at low temperature. The Sun has more of these elements so meteorites differ from the chemical composition of the Sun in this regard. |
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| A chemical classification of chondrites; groups are identified with capital letters, for example, H or CV. Probably formed on the same parent body |
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A related group of chondritic meteorites; inferred to have formed in the same region of the solar system.
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| Always carbon-bearing, but actually misnamed when it was believed that they had much higher carbon contents than other chondrites |
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| Named for their higher abundances of the magnesium silicate mineral, enstatite. |
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| Rumuruti and Kakangari Chondrites |
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| Both named for the only meteorite falls of this type and may represent distinct clans but each contain only one recognized group. |
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| Loss of electrons resulting in the conversion of reduced species like iron metal into oxidized species like ferrous and ferric ions. |
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| The clumping together of any cosmic sediment found in the area a chondrite was formed |
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