What falls versus what we recover: Quantifying search and recovery bias for orbital meteorites
Abstract Instrumentally determined pre‐atmospheric orbits of meteorites offer crucial constraints on the provenance of extraterrestrial material and the dynamical pathways that deliver it to Earth. However, recovery efforts are focused on larger and slower impacts due to their higher survival probabilities and ease of detection. In this study, we investigate the prevalence of these biases in the population of recovered meteorites with known orbits. We compiled a data set of 75 meteorites with triangulated trajectories and compared their orbits to 538 potential 1 g meteorite‐dropping fireballs detected by the Global Fireball Observatory, the European Fireball Network, and the Fireball Recovery and InterPlanetary Observation Network. Our results reveal that objects with small semi‐major axis values (a1.8 au) appear 2–3 more often than expected. The current sample of meteorites with known orbits does not reflect the sources of meteorites in our collections, and it is essential to account for search and recovery biases to obtain a more representative understanding of meteorite source contributions.
Authors
- Eleanor K. Sansom (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2702-673X)
- Jérémie Vaubaillon (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2374-9084)
- Patrick Shober (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4766-2098)
- Sophie Deam (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1955-628X)
- Pierre Vernazza (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2564-6743)
- B. Zanda (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4210-7151)
- Simon Anghel (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5047-574X)
- Hadrien A. R. Devillepoix (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9226-1870)
- F. Colas (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0764-5042)
Institutions
- Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (FR)
- Université Paris Cité (FR)
- Curtin University (AU)
- Aix-Marseille Université (FR)
- Université Paris Sciences et Lettres (FR)
- Université Paris-Saclay (FR)
- Sorbonne Université (FR)
- Laboratoire de Minéralogie & Cosmochimie du Muséum (FR)
- Laboratoire d’Astrophysique de Marseille (FR)
- Institut de minéralogie, de physique des matériaux et de cosmochimie (FR)
- Geosciences Paris-Saclay (FR)
- Johnson Space Center (US)
- International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (AU)
- Romanian Academy (RO)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Meteoritics and Planetary Science
- Published
- 2025-09-22
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1111/maps.70041
- Citations
- 2
- Primary Topic
- Astro and Planetary Science
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 2.31