just thinking aloud.

1.How many asteroids(in the asteroid belt) are heavy iron?
2.(If you could) move them to a mars an obit and slowly run them in mars
could you get enough mass to A. hold onto a atmosphere and B. get a magnetic
field started?
A little terraforming anyone.

Anyway I known this in impossible in all practical terms.

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On Wed, 16 Jul 2008 23:22:53 GMT, "Mark F." wrote:

1.How many asteroids(in the asteroid belt) are heavy iron?
2.(If you could) move them to a mars an obit and slowly run them in mars
could you get enough mass to A. hold onto a atmosphere and B. get a magnetic
field started?

The total mass of all the asteroids in the Asteroid Belt is only a
fraction of a percent of the mass of Mars. So you could dump them all on
that planet, and it would have virtually no effect either
gravitationally or magnetically.

BTW, Mars already has an iron core. The reason it doesn't have a
magnetic field is because the core isn't acting as a dynamo, probably
because it's no longer molten.
_________________________________________________

Chris L Peterson
Cloudbait Observatory
http://www.cloudbait.com

Mark F. wrote:

1.How many asteroids(in the asteroid belt) are heavy iron?

11,273,411.851

2.(If you could) move them to a mars an obit and slowly run them in mars
could you get enough mass to A. hold onto a atmosphere and B. get a magnetic
field started?

Funny! Suppose it worked exactly as you say. You would have a planet
with a crust made of iron, hundreds of miles deep. I'm not certain
where you would get the oxygen for the "terraforming," but it would
react with the iron to produce iron oxide. You would end up with -- are
you ready for this? -- a red planet with very little atmosphere.

A little terraforming anyone.

Why bother?

Anyway I known this in impossible in all practical terms.

What's the point, then?

Davoud

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