Meteorite Hunters – Earth and Technology

The Almuzara publishing house includes a direction for scientific dissemination. One of these books, published in 2024, is called Meteor Hunters. In search of a successful geology of the Universe.

Its author is José Lanza García, a native of Zafra (Badajoz) who received a degree in chemistry from the International University of Florida; founder and director of the Canary Islands Meteorite Museum; He is a member of the International Society of Meteorology and Planetary Sciences, the Committee for the Dissemination of Science and Space and the Spanish Network of Planetology and Astrobiology. He is also the founder and technical director of the scientific journal Meteorites, and the CEO and meteorite researcher at the ADARA laboratory. A teacher and author of numerous articles on meteorite research, he has published the books Moon Rocks and Moon Rock Correlation.

The book is not a classic book or a descriptive guide to meteorites that we are accustomed to, but rather a personal literary offering in which the author provides his experience in addition to his knowledge on the subject.

In eighteen chapters, Lanza explains to us in simple language a brief history of our galaxy and its meteorites, including their origin, always mysterious, their historical study, the most famous meteorites, their searches in deserts of sand or ice, their size, their weight, chemical and mineralogical composition , the likelihood of causing significant harm to humanity (always assuming an asteroid that struck our planet about 65 million years ago) and its economic value.

This last aspect is, for example, mentioned in the chapter entitled “Menos da una piedra”, a declaration of intent for any lover of collecting, be it meteorites or minerals, fossils, etc. and it is associated not only with the emotions of owning a piece of the sky, but also with the monetary, patrimonial, and also legal value of these cosmic pearls.

As with all books on this topic, there is no shortage of references to meteorites or classic meteorite impact zones such as Barringer Crater (Arizona), the Libyan Glass of the Sahara, or Campo del Cielo, a name used to designate a large area. northern Argentina, where the El Chaco meteorite, one of the most famous, was found. However, Lanza also tells us about recent discoveries, about meteorites from Mars and some specimens that he himself saw, and many that he came to weigh in his hands.

This is probably one of the most diverse books on meteorites written in Spanish, as it approaches the topic from different perspectives while still maintaining the personal touch that makes it so original.

Eduardo Rebollada Casado and Francisco Fernandez de la Llave