Parent body

In meteoritics, a parent body is the celestial body from which originates a meteorite or a class of meteorites.[1]

Identification

The easiest way to correlate a meteorite with a parent body is when the parent body still exists. This is the case for Lunar and Martian meteorites. Samples from Lunar meteorites can be compared with samples from the Apollo program. Martian meteorites can be compared to analysis carried out by rovers (e.g. Curiosity).

Meteorites can also be compared to spectral classes of asteroids. In order to identify the parent body of a class of meteorites, scientists compare their albedo and spectra with other known bodies. These studies show that some meteorite classes are closely related to some asteroids. The HED meteorites for example are correlated with 4 Vesta.[2] Another, perhaps most useful way to classify meteorites by parent bodies is by grouping them according to composition, with types from each hypothetical parent body clustering on a graph.[3] Meteoriticists have tentatively linked extant meteorites to 100-150 parent bodies; far fewer than the ~1 million main-belt asteroids larger than a kilometer, this apparent sampling bias remains an area of active research.[3]

gollark: Yes, I thought of this, but the issue is [REDACTED]ing grudgers.
gollark: The only major improvement I can think of would maybe be patternmatching on the weird alternating one, and turning evil at some point in order to exploit angels.
gollark: Against the random one it rapidly decides to not trust it and probably does well for it, against tit for tat it cooperates, against tat for tit it soon apifies it, against devil it also soon apifies it, against angel it's nice to it (suboptimal, can't really fix it easily), against time machine it cooperates, against grudger it cooperates, and that's basically it.
gollark: It probably isn't optimal but you know.
gollark: ```scheme(define forgiving-grudge (lambda (x y) (let* ( (defection-count (length (filter (lambda (m) (= m 1)) x))) (result (if (> defection-count 3) 1 0)) ) result)))```As far as I can tell this consistently wins.

See also

References
  1. J.H. Shirley, R.W. Fairbridge. Encyclopedia of Planetary Sciences, page 111.
  2. Gunter Faure, Teresa M. Mensing. Introduction to Planetary Science: The Geological Perspective. Page 175. ISBN 9781402052330
  3. Burbine et al., "Meteoritic Parent Bodies: Their Number and Identification." Accessed May 24, 2014
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