Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Orbital evolution of Lost City meteorite

1971; American Geophysical Union; Volume: 76; Issue: 17 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1029/jb076i017p04084

2156-2202

B. E. Lowrey,

Geomagnetism and Paleomagnetism Studies

The orbit of the Lost City meteorite is investigated to determine the influence of secular and encounter perturbations on the orbital evolution. Secular perturbations are negligible in the interval of 300–400 years and encounter perturbations are highly unlikely; therefore it is valid to interpret the short-lived cosmic radiogenic isotopes as having formed in the current orbit. During a 40,000-year numerical integration, the maximum inclination was 16°, the minimum 9.7°; the minimum eccentricity was 0.414, the maximum 0.447. Over a 500,000-year interval, it was found that the very long period secular terms were effective in preventing earth encounters for a substantial fraction of the time, suggesting that the hypothesis that the meteor was a surviving remnant of the early solar system ought not be completely dismissed.