FireballsSky

Meteorites remain the property of the State government. In this case the representative is the SA Museum. In WA its the WA Museum. As with all meteorites anywhere in the world that are in museum collections - whether they're one of the 20 with orbits, or one of the 50,000 without - scientists have samples on loan for their research, and then return them when their research is done.

Main thing is that we have an orbit, as well as the rock. The two together means that gradually, as we get more, we can build a geological map of the inner solar system.

It came in from around halfway between Mars and Jupiter and the orbit just touched our obit.

(Here is a picutre of the orbit](http://i.imgur.com/VNMwXrT.png) Jupiter's orbit is in orange; Mars is in red, and Earth is in light blue. The meteorite is in faded orange and dark blue.

Now we analyse the composition of the rock, and also try and pin down exactly where it came from - either a specific asteroid, or a specific part of the asteroid belt. There are only ~20 meteorites where we also have orbits. Every time we get a new one it tells us something new about the early solar system. As an example, the first one we ever got ended up giving us a clue about what the ingredients were that made the Earth. We never thought that that would be where it took us. Its always a surprise.

I think proof, but I've added it :S