An international research team has revealed the origin of most meteorites, announced the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS), which co-led this discovery on the French side.
The team, led by three CNRS researchers, the European Southern Observatory (ESO, Europe), and Czechia’s Charles University, managed to demonstrate that “70% of all recorded meteorite falls come from just three young asteroid families,” stated the French research center in a press release.
“These families result from three recent collisions that occurred 5.8, 7.5, and about 40 million years ago [respectively] in the main asteroid belt,” detailed the press release. The scientists also revealed the sources of other types of meteorites, according to the CNRS. With this study, the origin of more than 90% of meteorites is now identified.
The French research center described this discovery as “historic,” thanks to “a telescopic survey of the composition of all major asteroid families in the main belt, combined with cutting-edge numerical simulations of the collisional and dynamic evolution of these large families.”
“This approach has been extended to all meteorite families, also revealing the main sources of carbonaceous chondrites and some achondrites in addition to those originating from the Moon, Mars, or Vesta [the second most massive body in the main asteroid belt],” it added.
While these studies now identify the origin of over 90% of meteorites, the origin of the remaining 10% of recorded meteorites remains unidentified, according to CNRS. To address this, the team plans to continue their research, focusing this time on “characterizing all young families whose formation dates back no more than 50 million years,” it specified.
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