LPI | Resources

Tunguska: A Siberian Mystery and Its Environmental Impact

Andy Bruno
Cambridge University Press, 2022, 305 pages

In this deeply researched account of the 1908 Tunguska explosion and its legacy in Russian society, culture, and the environment, Andy Bruno recounts the intriguing history of the disaster and researchers' attempts to understand it. Taking readers inside the numerous expeditions and investigations that have long occupied scientists, the author foregrounds the significance of mystery in environmental history. This engaging and accessible account shows how the explosion has shaped the treatment of the landscape, how uncertainty allowed unusual ideas to enter scientific conversations, and how cosmic disasters have influenced the past and might affect the future.

A Cabinet of Curiosities: The Myth, Magic and Measure of Meteorites

Martin Beech
World Scientific, 2021, 531 pages

Hurtling through the atmosphere, in a blaze of light and reverberating percussions, the arrival of a meteorite on Earth is a magical, rare, and precious sight. These characteristics have accordingly ensured a long, yet often controversial history. For all this, meteorites are cosmic messengers. They tell us about the entire history of the solar system, their story carrying us from the very earliest moments, when solid material first began to form in the solar nebula. Indeed, meteorites played a key role in the origins of Earth's oceans and the genesis of life. Meteorites additionally tell us about the origin and evolution of the asteroids, and they tell us about impacts upon the Moon as well as the volcanic history of planet Mars. Much is known about the structure and chemistry of meteorites, but for all this, they still harbor many scientific mysteries that have yet to be resolved.

Meteorites: The Story of Our Solar System, Second Edition

Caroline Smith, Sarah Russell, and Natasha Almeida
Firefly Books, 2019, 128 pages

Leading experts in the field provide a compelling introduction to the space rocks that enter Earth's atmosphere at speeds ranging from 25,000 mph to 160,000 mph.

Primitive Meteorites and Asteroids: Physical, Chemical, and Spectroscopic Observations Paving the Way to Exploration

Neyda Abreu, editor
Elsevier, 2018, 545 pages

This book covers the physical, chemical and spectroscopic aspects of asteroids, providing important data and research on carbonaceous chondrites and primitive meteorites.

Meteorite: Nature and Culture

Maria Golia
Reaktion Books, 2015, 208 pages

Among the rarest things on Earth, meteorites carry an air of mystery and drama while having left a pervasive, outsized mark on our planet and civilization. In this book, the author tells the long history of our engagement with these sky-born space rocks.

Henbury Craters and Meteorites: Their Discovery, History and Study, Second Edition

Svend Buhl and Don McColl
Springer, 2015, 173 pages

In 1931, the cluster of craters at Henbury Cattle Station south of Alice Springs in Central Australia was one of the first places on Earth where a group of impact structures could definitely be linked to the fall of iron meteorites. The authors present previously unpublished documents covering early research at the Henbury site, provide an extended data set on the distribution of meteoritic material at Henbury craters, and compare recent discoveries on the mechanics of hypervelocity impacts with evidence collected over 80 years of research at the Henbury meteorite craters.

35 Seasons of U.S. Antarctic Meteorites (1976-2010): A Pictorial Guide to the Collection

Kevin Righter, Catherine M. Corrigan, Timothy J. McCoy, and Ralph P. Harvey, editors
American Geophysical Union/Wiley, 2015, 195 pages

Since 1976, meteorites have been collected by a NSF-funded field team, shipped for curation, characterization, distribution, and storage at NASA, and classified and stored for long term at the Smithsonian. It is the largest collection in the world with many significant samples including lunar, martian, many interesting chondrites and achondrites, and even several unusual one-of-a-kind meteorites from as yet unidentified parent bodies. This book is the first comprehensive volume that portrays the most updated key significant meteoritic samples from Antarctica.

Atlas of Meteorites

Monica Grady, Giovanni Pratesi, and Vanni Moggi Cecchi
Cambridge University Press, 2014, 373 pages

This is a complete visual reference for meteorite classification, combining high-resolution optical microscope images with detailed descriptions. It provides a systematic account of meteorites and their most important classification parameters, making it an essential resource for meteorite researchers.

Meteor Strike

Produced and directed by Susannah Ward for NOVA/WGBH, 2013, one DVD (60 minutes)

On February 15, 2013, car cameras and cellphones captured a blinding streak that flashed across the sky over Russia's Ural Mountains, followed by an explosion that injured some 1,500 people. The meteor, weighing around 10,000 tons, was the largest object to burst in the atmosphere since the Tunguska event of 1908, another impact in Siberia that left few eyewitnesses or clues. Within days, NOVA crews joined impact scientists in Russia as they hunted for clues about the meteor's origin and makeup. Is our solar system a deadly celestial shooting gallery with Earth in the crosshairs? And what are the chances that another, more massive asteroid is heading straight for us?

Meteoriten: Zeitzeugen der Entstehung des Sonnensystems (Meteorites: Witnesses of the Origin of the Solar System)

Franz Brandstätter, Ludovic Ferrière, and Christian Köberl
Verlag des Naturhistorischen Museums, 2013, 267 pages

This book recounts the history of meteorite research, tells how and where to find and identify them, their classification and composition, including the story of meteorites from Moon and Mars, and what happens when huge meteorites, the asteroids, collide with the Earth. (Text is in both English and German.)

Field Guide to Meteors and Meteorites

O. Richard Norton and Lawrence Chitwood
Springer, 2008, 287 pages

This book is both a field guide to observing meteors and a field guide to locating, preparing, and analyzing meteorites. It provides valuable information about meteors and meteorites for amateur and practical astronomers and meteorite collectors.

Meteorites and the Early Solar System II

Dante S. Lauretta and Harry Y. McSween, Jr., editors
University of Arizona Press, 2006, 943 pages

The geologic diversity of asteroids and other rocky bodies of the solar system are displayed in the enormous variety of textures and mineralogies observed in meteorites. The composition, chemistry, and mineralogy of primitive meteorites collectively provide evidence for a wide variety of chemical and physical processes. This book synthesizes our current understanding of the early solar system, summarizing information about processes that occurred before its formation.

Meteorites, Ice, and Antarctica

William A. Cassidy
Cambridge University Press, 2003, 349 pages

William Cassidy shares a first-hand account of his field experiences on the U.S. Antarctic Search for Meteorites Project. He describes the hugely successful field program in Antarctica and its influence on our understanding of the Moon, Mars, and the asteroid belt.

The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Meteorites

O. Richard Norton
Cambridge University Press, 2002, 354 pages

Extensively illustrated, this volume is a valuable guide to assist searchers in the field in recognizing the many classes of meteorites and is a reference source for students, teachers, and scientists who wish to probe deeper these amazing rocks from space.

Rocks from Space: Meteorites and Meteorite Hunters, Second Edition

O. Richard Norton
Mountain Press Publishing, 1998, 447 pages

This is a popular nontechnical introduction to meteorites, asteroids, comets, and impact craters. This edition has updated illustrations, expanded appendixes, and some fun cosmic humor.