Hi there,
Great question! There are quite a lot of meteorite samples but a lot of them are old and so have been on Earth for a long time which means they could be contaminated. The ones we really want to study are the falls (the ones we see and can collect immediately) because they are fresh from space.
Of the ones we do have, the samples we analyse are tiny…just small pieces taken from larger stones. So it’s only the small pieces that are destroyed but none the less it can be quite a while before there is a new fall and we will never know when that could be.
Comments
mfinn commented on :
Do they fall in all sorts of places?
Roy commented on :
Yes…all over the surface of the earth…and in the sea too…but most we never find.