Meteorites - rocks that fall to Earth from space - have pelted our planet from its birth about 4.5 billion years ago to today, often causing scant damage but sometimes triggering cataclysms. But from where exactly are these space rocks coming?

Past analyses of meteorites striking our planet today suggest some kind of shared origin; they're made from very similar materials and have been baked by cosmic radiation for a suspiciously short amount of time,

Until now, only 6% of meteorites had a known source, but now we can trace the origin of more than 70% of these rocks.

Three new studies have revealed the common origin of most of the meteorites that hit Earth, linking them to collisions in the relatively recent past. Though the Earth doesn't make a fuss about it, every day it is bombarded with around 44,