Why collect meteorites? It’s a simple question, yet one that invites a lot of discussion. There are meteorite collections in collections all over the world. The largest meteorite collections are housed by universities and museums like The Natural History Museum of Vienna, Arizona State University, NASA Johnson Space Center, and other institutions. Many of these collections aid in the study of meteorites with loan programs. At times, the histories behind these collections are as fascinating as the meteorites themselves.
Harvey Harlow Nininger, commonly known as H. H. Nininger, is often called “The Father of Meteoritics” and credited with helping to popularize the study and collection of meteorites, all while being self-taught. He had the largest personal collection of meteorites, up to his time. Nininger’s career spanned many decades and continents, and at the time he was considered to be responsible for half of all meteorite discoveries in the world. Despite his attempts to keep his meteorite collection in the United States, part of the collection was sold to the British Museum in 1958. The remaining part of the collection was sold to Arizona State University (ASU). Nininger collection pieces are seen with different labels, depending on the era they came from. Labels read “The Nininger Laboratory” up to 1937, then “ The American Meteorite Laboratory” until 1946. After that, the Niningers used “The American Meteorite Museum” labels until the Nininger collection was sold to ASU. Other meteorite scientists have also been known to have large personal collections of meteorites. American chemist John Lawrence Smith, who studied fragments of the Trenton meteorite in the 1880s, was a meteorite collector. His collection was known to be the finest in all the United States and at the time of his death, it was passed on to Harvard University. Once Smith began to study meteorites in the late 1880s, they almost exclusively occupied his attention. His interest in collecting meteorites began with the purchase of D. G. Troost’s meteorite collection. Dr. Troost was one of the founders (and the first President) of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia.
Troost’s collection contained some Tennessee irons, but Smith added meteorites from all over the world to his ever-growing collection. It was Smith’s wish that the collection be kept together. The collection represented about 250 falls, with a total weight of 2,500 pounds. Smith would be pleased to know that the collection has been kept by Harvard University, whose meteorite collection currently includes 600 distinct meteorites and about 1,500 specimens.
It’s impossible to discuss the study and collection of meteorites without mentioning pioneer meteoriticist Dr. Carleton B. Moore. Moore worked with NASA, the National Science Foundation (NSF), and the United States Geological Survey studying asteroids, lunar return samples, and geology. Moore was also the founding director of ASU’s Center for Meteorite Studies (CMS). Moore also founded the organization’s meteorite collection, which became one of the most scientifically important collections in the world. Using grants he received NASA, Moore started a program to loan collection specimens to other scientists for study, completely free of charge. The funding also enabled Moore to purchase scientifically important, world-renowned specimens for the collection. Today, CMS houses the largest university-based meteorite collection in the world. One of the most fascinating meteorite collections has resulted from the US Antarctic Meteorite program. NASA, the NSF, the Antarctic Search for Meteorites (ANSMET), and the Smithsonian Institution (SI) have partnered to recover, collect, and study these antarctic visitors from space. Since 1976, the program has recovered over 22,000 meteorite samples. Many scientifically significant meteorites are found in the Antarctic. The most interesting of these meteorites are sent to the Antarctic Meteorite Curation Facility at Johnson Space Center (JSC). At JSC, scientists can study these meteorites in greater detail. Ultimately though, all meteorites are sent to the Smithsonian Institution for permanent storage and curation. The meteorites found in the Antarctic by these scientists include Martian and lunar meteorites, chondrites and achondrites, and iron meteorites.
Scientists and universities aren’t the only ones with interesting meteorite collections, however. Retired healthcare industry executive Terry Boudreaux, for example, recently made headlines with his donation. Boudreaux and his wife, Gail—a powerful businessperson in her own right, and ranked 10th on Fortune’s list of Most Powerful Women in 2023—donated a collection of 115 fossil meteorites to the Field Museum in Chicago in 2022. It was the largest collection of fossil meteorites in the world at the time.
Naveen Jain, who founded Intelius and Moon Express, a company that aimed to launch a lunar lander with the eventual goal of mining the Moon for natural resources. Jain’s meteorite collection is thought to be one of the largest private collections in the world and includes over 700 specimens. By 2012, it’s estimated that the collection cost him about $5 million and includes a 4-gram fragment of the Chassigny Martian meteorite. Chassigny is the meteorite that the chassignites are named after—they are the “C” in the SNC group of Martian meteorites.
Jain’s collection also includes meteorites that are nearly impossible to find in the collector’s market, like a 119-gram slice of the Peekskill meteorite. In 1992, the rock famously hit a 1980 Chevy Malibu in New York—Jain owns a broken piece of the car’s taillight, too. He also owns a slice of the Sylacauga meteorite; in 1954, a fragment crashed the roof of Ann Elizabeth Fowler Hodges’ home and hit her as she napped on a couch. The meteorite left a significant bruise, and Hodges, uncomfortable with the media attention and contention over the ownership of the meteorite, later donated it to the Alabama Museum of Natural History in 1956.
Other notable private meteorite collections include that of James Maxime DuPont. DuPont was born in Scotland but would spend much of his life in New Jersey, where he founded an industrial thermoplastics company. DuPont spent 30 years building his collection, and at the time of his death, it contained over 1,719 individual meteorites, with a mass of over 500 kilograms. His collection of meteorites was purchased by the Planetary Studies Foundation, and then later passed on to the Yale Peabody Museum. DuPont’s collection did include some controversial finds and some awaiting classification.
Meteorite collectors, both of the scientific and private variety, do a great service in keeping interest in the world of meteorites alive. Though they provide great value to scientists, meteorites are also of great interest to collectors. Private collectors, like H. H. Nininger, are often self-taught and take great interest in the different meteorite groups and classifications. Other collectors may view their meteorites as investments, or as heirlooms to pass down to future generations. No matter the reason, people all over the world and of radically different backgrounds can find common ground in the majesty and mystery of meteorites.
