[bonesmccoy]

Yes, it is disappointing to come to that conclusion, but it is still early in the investigation.

Given the other problems during the mission, you have to wonder if there was something else occuring.

If significant tile damage occured, the silica either comes off or gets compressed. The silica ceramic in the tiles is very light and mostly composed of empty space.

So, the material should either fracture and become pulverized. Or, the material should be compressed.

If I recall, the tile material is friable and is not very cohesive.

If NASA has not done impact tests with scrap tiles, they should. The dust that emerges would be comparative to the impact on STS-107. If there is no dust, then the tiles may not produce a "dust cloud" upon impact.

On the other hand, if there is a substantial dust cloud, NASA could analyze the colorimetric properties and compare to the film.

[XBob]

the best comparison I can easily think of is to that of an old box of baking soda, (only much lighter) rather cohesive, and will hold it's shape outside the box, until you drop or impact it, then it comes apart into fine granuals.

there are a couple of photo's of tiles in texas that landed on a road and were run over and crushed, at relatively low speed.