Name: thomas d burnes
Status: N/A
Age: N/A
Location: N/A
Country: N/A
Date: 1993 - 1999
Question:
Are meteors magnetic? Are asteroids Magnetic?
Replies:
I was surprised to find out that the answer to both these questions is
sometimes yes. A Sky and Telescope article from last July says "certain
meteorites, particularly irons, stony-irons, and some ordinary chordates, can be
distinctly magnetized." (A chondrite is a type of meteorite that contains littl e BB-sized pieces of
glassy material.) That same article says that at least one asteroid appears to
be magnetized. When the Galileo spacecraft flew past the asteroid named Gaspra
in October 1991 it detected a magnetic field around the asteroid. It is now beli eved that this field
is due to magnetized solid metal in Gaspra (Gaspra is too small to have a molten
core, which is what gives the Earth its field). It is not known how
Gaspra became magnetized. And if one asteroid is magnetic, surely other
asteroids are, too.
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