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Perihelion history and atmospheric survival as primary drivers of the Earth’s meteorite record

Nature Astronomy volume 9, pages 799–812 (2025)Cite this article

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Abstract

Models predict that more than half of all impacting meteoroids should be carbonaceous, reflecting the abundance of carbon-rich asteroids in the main belt and near-Earth space. Yet carbonaceous chondrites represent only about 4% of meteorites recovered worldwide. Here we analyse 7,982 meteoroid impacts and 540 potential meteorite falls from 19 global observation networks and demonstrate that intense thermal stress at low perihelion distances coupled with the filtering effect of Earth’s atmosphere explains this mismatch. Meteoroids repeatedly subjected to intense thermal cycling near the Sun fracture and weaken, removing the most friable objects even before atmospheric entry. Our data also show that tidally disrupted meteoroid streams produce especially fragile fragments that rarely survive to the ground. Consequently, compact, higher-strength, thermally cycled bodies dominate the meteorite record. These findings reconcile the predicted carbonaceous flux with its scarcity in collections, underscoring how orbital evolution and atmospheric filtering shape the materials that reach Earth’s surface.

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Fig. 1: Orbital distribution of 7,982 impacts detected by EDMOND, CAMS, GMN, FRIPON and EFN networks.
Fig. 2: Apparent initial velocity distribution for sporadic asteroidal top-of-the-atmosphere population versus meteorite fall populations.
Fig. 3: Orbital density heatmaps comparing sporadic >10 g top-of-atmosphere asteroidal impacts and >1 g meteorite falls.

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Data availability

The fireball data for the top-of-the-atmosphere population and meteorite falls are available via Zenodo at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14017585 (ref. 97).

Code availability

Available upon request from the authors.

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Acknowledgements

This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant no. 945298 ParisRegionFP (P.M.S.) and grant no. 101150536 (S.A.). The Global Fireball Observatory and data pipeline is enabled by the support of the Australian Research Council (grant nos. DP230100301 and LE170100106) (P.M.S., H.A.R.D., S.E.D., E.K.S., P.B.). FRIPON was initiated by funding from ANR (grant no. 13-BS05-0009-03), carried by the Paris Observatory, Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle, Paris-Saclay University and Institut Pythéas (LAM-CEREGE). Vigie-Ciel was part of the 65 Millions d’Observateurs project, carried by the Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle and funded by the French Investissements d’Avenir programme. FRIPON data are hosted and processed at Institut Pythéas SIP (Service Informatique Pythéas), and a mirror is hosted at LTE (Le Laboratoire Temps Espace/Paris Observatory) (P.M.S., J.V., S.A., F.C., B.Z., P.V.).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. LTE, Observatoire de Paris, Université PSL, Sorbonne Université, Université de Lille, LNE, CNRS, Paris, France

    Patrick M. Shober, Jeremie Vaubaillon, Simon Anghel, Francois Colas & Brigitte Zanda

  2. Space Science and Technology Centre, Curtin University, Perth, Western Australia, Australia

    Hadrien A. R. Devillepoix, Sophie E. Deam, Eleanor K. Sansom & Phil Bland

  3. International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research, Curtin University, Perth, Western Australia, Australia

    Hadrien A. R. Devillepoix, Sophie E. Deam & Eleanor K. Sansom

  4. Astronomical Institute of the Romanian Academy, Bucharest, Romania

    Simon Anghel

  5. Institut de Minéralogie, Physique des Matériaux et de Cosmochimie, Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle, CNRS, Paris, France

    Brigitte Zanda

  6. Laboratoire d’Astrophysique de Marseille, Aix-Marseille University, CNRS, CNES, LAM, Institut Origines, Marseille, France

    Pierre Vernazza

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Contributions

P.M.S. collected the open-access data sources, removed the cometary components, applied the α–β methodology, debiased the FRIPON dataset, estimated the masses for the CAMS/EDMOND datasets and did the statistical significance analysis of the differences between the orbital distributions. S.A. calculated the photometric masses for the FRIPON dataset. P.M.S., H.A.R.D., J.V., S.E.D. and S.A. assisted with the data interpretation. E.K.S., H.A.R.D. and P.B. facilitated the management, collection and reduction of the GFO dataset. P.M.S., S.A., F.C., J.V., B.Z. and P.V. facilitated the management, collection and reduction of the FRIPON observations. P.M.S., H.A.R.D., J.V., S.E.D., S.A. and P.V. assisted with the paper revisions.

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Correspondence to Patrick M. Shober.

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Shober, P.M., Devillepoix, H.A.R., Vaubaillon, J. et al. Perihelion history and atmospheric survival as primary drivers of the Earth’s meteorite record. Nat Astron 9, 799–812 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41550-025-02526-6

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