Meteorites: They Came from Outer SpaceMeteorite hunter and TV personality Geoffrey Notkin travels the world digging for space rocks

We meteorite enthusiasts are passionate about our space rocks, and also pretty much anything else related to them, especially books. It has been a while since a major new meteorite book appeared in our telescopes. The last was The Field Guide to Meteors and Meteorites by O. Richard Norton and Lawrence A. Chitwood published in 2008. The release of any work on the subject is a treat for us, and the wonderful new meteorite book The Fallen Sky: An Intimate History of Shooting Stars by Christopher Cokinos is both a joy to read and a revelation.

To most people the study of meteorites might perhaps seem as “hard science” a topic as one could find. Planetary geology, the formation of asteroids, the theories of chondrule creation, how meteorites heat up and break up in our atmosphere, where they fall, and what they are made of are just a few of the topics we research and ponder. So, what a delight it is to find a book that does not deal, primarily, with the composition and classification of meteorites, but rather delves deeply into their mystery, history, and allure.

Christopher uses meteorites as a vehicle to embark upon his own journey of discovery, at the same time considering the astonishing journeys they have made. While visiting some of the most famous meteorites sites in the world including Cape York, Greenland; Antarctica; the Brenham, Kansas strewnfield, and Meteor Crater, Arizona; he ponders the motives and passions of brilliant and eccentric scientists, researchers, hunters and entrepreneurs who made the study of—or the acquisition of—meteorites the pivotal moments of their lives. And he makes some significant discoveries about his own life along the way.

“We each have found ourselves lost in the dark wood, whatever we thought the true way had been or can be, but for me, in no small measure, I found the path out because it was lit at times with the passage of shooting stars. This book is an exploration of lives, including my own, caught in such light.”

The editor of Istope: A Journal of Literary Nature and Science Writing and a professor of English at Utah State University, Christopher is a literary writer in every sense of the word. His prose is unique and lyrical, full of imagery and contemplation. There is also plenty of humor and plenty of adventure, and rich portraits of characters who played critical roles in the history of space rocks.

The Fallen Sky is an intensely personal book. Christopher digs into the lore of space rocks and shooting stars and then uses what he learns about them to examine his own life. It is the most personal and most moving book about space rocks since Harvey Harlow Nininger’s great autobiography, Find a Falling Star, published in 1972 and now long out-of-print.

A beautiful and thoughtful work, The Fallen Sky belongs on the bookshelf or bedside table of everyone interested in meteorites, astronomy, the study of obsession, and the history of science.

On olivine-rich pallasites:

“The olivine, which on Earth is the gemstone peridot, seems to glow from within. Slices of pallasites look a bit like the coat of a metal leopard with green spots . . . Brenham olivine is autumnal and ethereal, like an October forest and sky in a luminist painting. The curves of metal look like sinuous paths connecting lakes seen from on high. A slice of Brenham? It’s a silver sponge that soaks up light.”

The Fallen Sky: An Intimate History of Shooting Stars by Christoper Cokinos is published by Penguin USA on July 30, 2009
Hardcover
9.25 x 6.25 in
528 pages
$27.95

Unlike many of my colleagues, I really enjoy doing media interviews, especially when I have the pleasure of working with a particularly thoughtful, bright and inventive journalist. A few weeks ago, I received a call from Eleanor Perry-Smith, a writer at Northwestern University in Illinois. She was working on a the premiere issue of a hip new science magazine named SciQ. With a tag line like “Feed Your Head” how could I possibly resist participating?

Feature article on meteorites in the premiere issue of SciQ magazine showing MeteoriteBlog author Geoffrey Notkin on the east rim of Meteor Crater, Arizona. Photograph © by Aerolite Meteorites; article layout and content © by SciQ Magazine

It turned out that Eleanor’s father is a fellow meteorite enthusiast and he and I once met at the Denver Gem and Mineral Show, which runs over a long weekend each September, and is an event that I particularly look forward to. Eleanor and I did a series of telephone interviews and covered the familiar topics: “Where do you hunt for meteorites?” and “How much are meteorites worth?” but she also asked a number of completely unique and original questions which were entirely new to me. How very refreshing it was! When we were finished, I mailed a CD-ROM of original photographs along to her, selected from years of adventuring and picture taking.

After the interview comes the waiting. I’m always excited to see a new feature on meteorites, but I’ve learned not to expect too much, since the final manuscript typically has to go through a series of editors, designers and production people. Mistakes are often made; sometimes quotes are even changed, and you can’t please everyone.

When the comp copies of SciQ arrived last week, the first thing that caught my eye was a choice adventure shot on the Contents page (your blogger waist deep in a freezing river in Europe, digging into muddy banks in search of buried treasure) alongside a subhead which reads:

ROCK STARS
Meet the Indiana Joneses in search of space
treasures in the meteorite-hunting world

Well that was sure a great start, but it just got better and better. Pages 36 and 37 present a gorgeous spread [see above] with a large color reproduction of that striking Meteor Crater east rim photo and a big, modern headline which shouts out: “ROCK THE COSMOS.” I assumed it just had to be a play on the Clash’s 1982 rock ‘n’ roll song “Rock the Casbah,” and when I later mentioned that to Eleanor she replied: “I knew you’d like the Clash reference.” Since they are my all-time top band, I couldn’t have been much happier. The article includes brief interviews with Anne Black, vice-president of the IMCA, and veteran meteorite dealer Edwin “E.T.” Thompson as well as an introduction to seminal American meteorite hunter and scientist Harvey Nininger, and highlights from some of my adventures (and misadventures) in Chile’s Atacama Desert and the Arctic Circle in northern Siberia.

SciQ magazine is a new publication delivering “engaging, culturally savvy science and technology,” reports project director Patti Wolter, and is the progeny of fourteen graduate students in the Magazine Publishing Project at the Medill School of Journalism. What a superb exercise in practical experience for this team of  students! SciQ is an exciting, engaging, well designed and well written new science magazine. If you’d seen it on a shelf at your local newsagent, you’d never guess for an instant that it was a student project — it more interesting and better designed than many of its big-budget competitors.

The entire publication is well worth a read, especially “Rock the Cosmos.” Unfortunately, the meteorite feature is not available online, so visit their website and order a copy for only $4.95. Hats off to everyone involved, especially Eleanor — my new favorite interviewer.

LEARN MORE ABOUT METEORITES

Please visit my company site, Aerolite Meteorites, for one of the web’s finest selections of meteorites for sale, meteorite jewelry, Libyan Desert Glass from Egypt. Latest additions include superb Sikhote-Alin iron meteorites from Russia, with remarkable sculptural features such as natural holes, flow lines and orientation.

And don’t forget to watch the skies!