Why are meteorites sometimes called poor man’s space probes?

Meteorites are often referred to as "poor man’s space probes" because they provide scientists with essential, detailed data about the solar system and its early evolution without the immense cost and complexity of launching dedicated spacecraft missions to retrieve samples.1

Because asteroids and comets are considered "leftovers" from the intermediate stages of the solar system's formation, they preserve evidence of events that occurred billions of years ago. By studying these fragments that naturally fall to Earth, researchers can gain insights into the origin of the solar system, including the chemical composition and physical conditions of the nebular cloud from which the planets condensed. Until robotic missions can return a wider variety of samples from space, meteorites remain the most precise and accessible source of information for modeling the history of our solar system.231