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comment by am_Unition

    I guess it would magnify the effect but make a measurable change to the tumbling motion?

Maybe! Same story on the experimental side. It depends on our ability to precisely measure a difference in the brightness profile vs. our ability to precisely measure position. And fit either to decent models.

    Wouldn't ejecta from such impact become at least largely demagnetised by a combination of shock and temperature?

Yeah, most probably. That's a really weird range of parameter space to characterize though. Like what if two of Jupiter's moons eventually slammed together, you could actually end up strongly magnetizing a piece of ejecta if it was cooled below the Curie temperature somewhere near its perijove, if it had juuuuuust the right initial conditions.

    I'm not sure (and can't seem to find conclusive papers/sources) if what we measured on Earth is mostly the original, unchanged field.

I hadn't really thought about that before, but now I'm convinced that the magnetic properties of meteors are typically 99%+ compromised by the time they make meteorite status because of the intense heating during atmospheric entry. But dude, that potentially means that the magnetic flux from meteors with large magnetic moments is somehow put into energizing the plasma sheath surrounding the thing during its "shooting star" phase. The worst part is that I don't think anyone will pay you to study such a phenomenon. :(





Devac  ·  1916 days ago  ·  link  ·  
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