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byrnema comments on Open thread, February 15-28, 2013 - Less Wrong Discussion

5 Post author: David_Gerard 15 February 2013 11:17PM

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Comment author: byrnema 16 February 2013 02:30:26AM *  0 points [-]

OK. Unlikely doesn't mean not true. But I would expect there to be some debris-type events around the passing of an asteroid, whereas a completely coincidental meteorite (for, say, the entire month over which the asteroid is passing) has a lower probability. It's like helping an old lady up after a fall and picking up her cane when she says, 'oh no, that isn't mine'. (Someone else dropped their cane?)

From your account and others, it seems the trajectories were not similar enough to conclude they arrived together in the same bundle. The second idea is that the meteorite that fell was 'shaken loose' due to some kind of interaction with the asteroid and any associated debris, and I think this hypotheses would be more difficult to falsify.

(So I agree with Mitchell Porter, I'd like to see more details.) I wonder if there an animation of the asteroid and the meteor for the period over which their historical tracks are known.

You also ought to mention the NASA site: where did you find that information about the trajectories?