At 8:57 p.m. on November 9, 1923, a fireball passed over McPherson, Kansas that changed the life of H.H. Nininger and in many respects, the entire science of meteoritics.
As Nininger wrote in an unpublished letter, “On the night of November 9, 1923, at 8:57 p.m., a fireball crossed the horizon in a sweep of light that re-patterned my life in the instant it illuminated the Kansas sky . . . In 1923 meteorites were mentioned only casually in geology texts, granted perhaps a page in astronomy text-books, but I was overwhelmed with the thought of being able to hold in my hand matter from beyond the domain of earth.”
H.H. Nininger spent the rest of his life pursuing meteorites and went on to become the “father of modern meteoritics.” On this 100th Anniversary of the McPherson, Kansas, fireball that started it all, the Nininger family is thrilled to announce the release of the full version of his life story, In Search of Falling Stars: H.H. Nininger‘s Classic “Find a Falling Star” Revisited and Expanded , scheduled for release in the Fall of 2024.