Arizona State University recently published The Meteorite Effect – How ASU’s Bold Investment in a Collection of Meteorites 65 Years Ago Powers Research to This Day – both online and in the Winter 2025 issue of its alumni magazine, ASU Thrive. This wonderful article by Brett Hovell recaps H. H. Nininger’s pioneering study of meteorites, how he became perhaps the single most accomplished collector of meteorites ever, and how his collection would seed generations of cutting-edge space research at Arizona State University.
“Nininger’s work anticipated the space age, and it proposed to grapple with a question humanity has always asked: What else is out there? . . . Today, there’s a direct link between the myriad space exploration missions on which ASU collaborates with NASA — such as the Psyche Mission, led by Lindy Elkins-Tanton — and that initial decision by ASU to invest in a collection of meteorites 65 years ago.”
The full article can be found here.