Hi Moonman,

Pretty amazing that many finds from WISE. Now out of the 25K asteroids it has found, how many of them have fragments that reside in our collections? I doubt it would be 2%.

Perhaps we'll be able to get more spectra studies done sometime on various asteroids. That would do a lot to letting us know where the various meteorites come from.

They mention the WISE space telescope hunts ultra cold objects. I am sure many are very faint, making it plain tough to figure out any compositional make up from lack of reflective particles on the surface of such asteroids.

--AL

Greetings MKHZ,

Sorry to be somewhat off subject here also. My apology to forum members. This thread is about asteroids though, and spectra related to them or planets seems like a fair comment.

I'm not very optimistic about there being any Mercury Meteorites on Earth. While I know there have been computer simulations done that suggest we could have had a few chunks from Mercury make it out our way, I still think it would be ultra rare for one to land here, then a stroke of luck for it to be found.

Meteorites making their way out from the inner solar system would have to gain lots of energy to leave those orbits. Plus it is closer to the Sun, and Sun's gravity making it a big gravity drag on such items. If Jupiter can effect meteoroids, then just think what something that is 998 times more massive would do!!

Collisions that would liberate parts of the the Planet Mercury would be substantial collisions (perhaps we don't have those in this day an age, unless a large comet impacted).

Although Venus is closer an impactor would have to make it down through an atmosphere that is 100 times thicker than our own AND make it back out. Much drag in either case. The outer solar system an object just needs to loose some energy for it to head in to the Mars, Earth, Venus, Mercury systems over time or a kirkwood gap. Jupiter would take over then.

I am aware of the sensational advertising of some angrites possibly being possible Mercury artifacts, but I think that Alan Ruben made a comment on the meteorite list which suggested to me that we don't have proof yet. I am open minded on this type of stuff. I am also a show me kind of guy before I will believe it. There is a probe that will be getting more information on our inner most planet soon. Perhaps that will clear the air, or create more questions. All my best!

--AL