Abstract
We have measured gamma rays emanating from radionuclides produced by cosmic ray interactions in two fragments of Gebel Kamil iron meteorite. Based on the cosmogenic 26Al activity, it is deduced that one fragment, taken from the narrow edge of the mace-shaped main mass, was exposed close to the surface and the other fragment was located about 73 cm deep inside the meteoroid. No signal due to 44Ti was detected indicating that it has totally decayed on the Earth after fall of the meteorite and the terrestrial age of the meteorite must be longer than a few centuries. The ablation is shown to be asymmetric around the centre of the meteoroid and the pre-atmospheric mass of the meteoroid has been estimated to be between 30 and 60 tons, consistent with other estimates.
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Acknowledgements
We are grateful to Dr. R. Michel for giving us the procedures for calculating production rates of nuclides in meteorites. We thank Dr. U. Ott for his precious suggestions which enabled us to improve the paper.
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Taricco, C., Colombetti, P., Sinha, N. et al. Cosmic ray effects in the iron meteorite Gebel Kamil and its asymmetric ablation. Astrophys Space Sci 364, 76 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10509-019-3564-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10509-019-3564-6