Mass distributions of meteorites

Abstract

ABSTRACT For at least five decades, the study of the mass distribution of meteorites has been carried out. This study aims to obtain the flux of material that comes to the Earth’s surface. For this, the observational data were modelled statistical distributions of the most varied types, derived from Gibbs entropy. However, it appears that the fragmentation process is probably complex in nature. Given this particularity, we model the mass distribution of meteorites using the q-exponential function, derived from Tsallis non-extensive statistical mechanics. This distribution is capable of modelling the entire observed spectrum of meteorite mass regardless of whether the specimens originate from the fragmentation of a single meteorite, belong to the same mineralogical group or type, or when are separated by collection sites on the Earth’s surface. We suggest that most meteorite samples are incomplete in certain mass ranges due to the action of the so-called gathering bias.