Re: Stardust matter predictions

In message <1137471020.705637.113700@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, jgreen@xxxxxxxxxxx writes 

Jonathan Silverlight wrote:

In message <nrPyf.7578$Zo.7437@trnddc07>, Mark F. <res049nn@xxxxxxx>
writes
>
><jgreen@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
>news:1137387585.579767.123650@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>> Astronomers place great faith in their ability to analyse the chemical
>> composition of distant objects by spectroscopy.
>> Assuming that such has been done by observers of the source of the
>> material, how will those predictions shape up? What WILL the material
>> consist of, and what were the predictions?
>>

>My prediction is.
>It must be cheese, just like the moon!
>

I've asked this before, but did an astronomer really compare the
spectrum of cheese with that of the moon?
It appears in Robert Heinlein's "Rocketship Galileo" and I've often
wondered if it was something he made up or a real event.

A very predictable silence.

The only silence I've noted around here is your reply to my post about the Magellanic clouds (thread "Milky Way Galaxy is warped and vibrating like a drum")

If predictions have been made as to the chemistry from analysis of
spectroscopic data treated via Einstein, and it turns out to be way off
base, BIG problems for astronomers as to what OTHER mistaken notions
they may have as to the composition of cosmic entities.
A chance here to put analytical spectroscopy to the test.

And just what has relativity to do with spectroscopy, at least for solar system objects?
Spectroscopy is a fairly blunt instrument, but for instance this paper <http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1988PhDT........13B> says "A mixture of carbon and silicates fits the data. The derived carbon-to-silicon abundance for this mixture is approx. 0.7, consistent with some other results, but lower than the value derived from mass spectrometry."
It will be interesting to see if comet Wild is similar. I doubt the detailed analysis will wildly (sorry :-) differ from the carbon/silicate model. And it will be very detailed - isotope composition, microprobe analysis, all the resources of the world's laboratories to compare what we know by remote sensing and space probes. Note that we already have mass spectrometer data for the composition of cometary dust grains from the Giotto, Vega and Stardust probes, so we can compare them. I don't think Deep Impact had one, and sadly CONTOUR was lost.
Deep Space 1 used an infrared spectrometer to observe comet Borelly, and Deep Impact used one on Tempel 1. We aren't just talking about spectroscopy of the coma any more.
.

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