Are meteorites rare?
Yes. Meteorites are much rarer than gold. Scientists have named more than 70,000 of them, and most are small.
Meteorites are some of the rarest rocks on Earth. Space rocks fall all the time, but most land in the sea or in places where nobody goes, and most are small and look a lot like ordinary dark stones, so they are very hard to spot.
Scientists keep an official list of every known meteorite. It holds more than 70,000 named meteorites, and many of these are fragments of the same fall. Most were found in Antarctica or in hot deserts, where dark stones are easier to see and last longer. Only about 1,400 or so were actually seen falling and then collected.
In Britain, only about two dozen meteorite falls have been recorded and recovered over more than two centuries. The most recent, Winchcombe in 2021, was the first for 30 years.
That makes meteorites much rarer than gold. All the gold ever mined would fill a cube a bit over 20 metres on each side, but all the meteorites in collections would fill far less. Some kinds, like meteorites from Mars or the Moon, are rarer still. If you ever hold a meteorite, you are holding something truly special.