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Why are stony meteorites more common than iron meteorites?

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Meteorite The Hoba meteorite, lying where it was discovered in 1920 near Grootfontein, Namibia. The largest meteorite on Earth and an iron meteorite by classification, it consists of a nickel-iron alloy and is estimated to weigh about 60 tons.

Stony meteorites are significantly more common than iron meteorites, accounting for approximately 94 percent of all known meteorites, while iron meteorites make up only about 5 percent.1

The prevalence of stony meteorites is primarily due to their composition and origin. Most stony meteorites are chondrites, which are primitive aggregates of material that formed in the solar nebula and have not experienced significant melting. Because they represent the original, undifferentiated material from which many bodies in the solar system were built, they are naturally more abundant than the metallic remnants of differentiated bodies.231

In contrast, iron meteorites originate from the metallic cores of asteroids that underwent geochemical differentiation—a process where melting caused dense metallic components to sink to the center, while rocky material formed a mantle. Iron meteorites are only exposed and eventually reach Earth if these parent bodies are disrupted by collisions that strip away their crusts and mantles. While iron meteorites are more durable and easier to identify on Earth's surface than stony ones, their relative scarcity reflects the specific, violent conditions required to expose the cores of differentiated asteroids.145