The Delivery of Martian and Lunar Meteorites to Earth

Using a regularized mixed-variable symplectic integration code (including the effects of the planets from Mercury through Neptune), we numerically integrate the orbits of ejecta thrown off the terrestrial planets for times of 10(7) --10(8) years. Particles are followed until they impact a planet, strike the Sun, or cross the orbit of Jupiter. The distribution of transit times for Earth-impacting objects is compared with the cosmic-ray exposure data for the lunar and martian meteorites. This comparison is consistent with a recurrent ejection of small (cm to dm) meteoroids due to impacts on their parent bodies. Long-range gravitational effects, especially secular resonances, strongly influence the orbits of many meteoroids and can increase meteoroid collision rates with other planets and even the Sun. These effects, and collisional destruction in the asteroid belt, result in shortened time scales and higher fluxes than previously believed, especially for martian meteorites. A small flux of mercurian meteorites appears possible; recovery of ejecta from the Earth and Venus is less likely. We have developed a model which calculates the expected transfer-age spectrum in terms of the impactor flux onto the Moon and Mars. The non-zero, but finite, age of the Antarctic ice sheet is crucial in understanding the different distributions of transfer ages in the lunar and martian cases. To match the data, most recently arrived lunar meteorites must have been launched by impactors of diameter D < 100 m which struck the Moon in the last few hundred thousand years. In contrast, martian meteorites were launched by impactors several kilometers in diameter that struck Mars several million years ago. The number of meteoroids launched by each impact must scale as D(2) in the lunar case, but D(3) for Mars. Different surface properties for the Moon and Mars may account for these differences. In connection with the transport of microfossils to and from Earth, we show that a small fraction of martian ejecta can arrive at Earth on direct orbits taking less than a year. Since bacteria survive in space for several years and many martian meteorites have landed on our planet, martian biota have probably been transferred to Earth from Mars if they ever existed on Mars.