We’ve Found the Source of Most Meteorites
70% of meteorites come from three collisions that occurred in the asteroid belt within the past 40 million years. An exhaustive study by an international team of scientists has tracked down the sources of most meteorites falling on Earth. The team gathered data and ran simulations to reveal how collisions produce families of asteroids that start in similar orbits and how those fragments spread out over time. Their work still needs to be validated, but it explains several key observables with a single model.