The Meteorites: Encounters With Outer Space & Deep Time

by Helen Gordon

Genres: History, Non-fiction, Science
Pages: 265
Rating:

Synopsis:

From your window you can see the stars and distant planets: light years away, it's easy to think that our existences and theirs will never intersect. Yet meteorites - mysterious, irregular rocks of sometimes immense value - connect us with the vastness of the universe. They may have brought the first life to our planet, and today they still reveal extraordinary scientific insights.

Helen Gordon reveals the fascinating stories of fallen meteorites and the lives they've touched - from collectors to kings, scientists to farmers. She meets amateur astronomers and gem dealers, goes meteorite hunting across rooftops and learns what objects moving through space can tell us about the fragility of life on Earth.

Helen Gordon’s The Meteorites is an exploration of what meteorites are and what they’ve meant to humanity. It digs into some of the science around meteorites, but also discusses historical meteorites (collected long after they fell) both scientifically and socially, and meteorites that were adapted by people of the past into keepsakes and monuments, and other modern ways of engaging with meteorites (like collecting them).

For me, there was maybe a bit more focus on the social side of meteorite-appreciation than I was interested in. People wanting to appreciate the aesthetics of meteorites and use them for decorations aren’t that interesting to me — for many of them, meteorites are like any prestigious art object, a way to show off. Some are interested in the rarity, whether or not the meteorites are beautiful. Ludicrous amounts of money changes hands, with some specimens getting lost to science. Gordon writes about non-scienticist collectors in quite a few chapters, and while some are responsible and willing to share their meteorites for testing etc, I have questions about treating meteorite collection like a hobby.

Mind you, citizen science around micrometeorites could be pretty cool and useful, so I guess it’s not so clear-cut.

Anyway, where it stuck to the more scientific stuff I was more interested, but I didn’t particularly feel connected with the whole… sense of wonder, numinous, connection-to-the-cosmos type bits. I get that more through doing science or reading about people doing science, generally; the idea of standing where a significant meteorite fell is fairly uninteresting to me.

Rating: 3/5 (“liked it”)