Banquet Talk: The Fallen Sky: An Intimate History of Shooting Stars

COFFEE_KLATCH · Invited

Abstract

Christopher Cokinos will read from his book The Fallen Sky: An Intimate History of Shooting Stars, which blends folklore, history, science and memoir in an exploration--literal and metaphoric--of the passions that drive meteorite hunters. From Kansas to Greenland, from Utah to Antarctica, Cokinos crossed the globe to follow in the footsteps of such famed meteorite hunters and scientists as Robert Peary, Harvey Nininger and Eugene Shoemaker. Cokinos himself hunted meteorites as part of the NSF-funded Antarctic Search for Meteorites expedition in 2003-2004. Seed Magazine said this of his book: ``When Cokinos isn't chronicling the solar system's origins or recounting obsessive tales of explorers trekking to the ends of the Earth in pursuit of exotic rocks from the sky, he's telling the reader about the dissolution of his first marriage or his struggles with depression. But this unflinching introspection sets the stage for Cokinos' transformation, as he delves deeper into his subject and grasps the profound links between shooting stars and life here on Earth." Cokinos teaches at Utah State University, is the author of Hope Is the Thing with Feathers, also from Tarcher/Penguin, and has had work in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the American Scholar and elsewhere.

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Authors

  • Andrew Polemi

    Utah State University, Brigham Young University, University of Pennsylvania, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Los Alamos National Laboratory, High Altitude Observatory, University of Colorado at Boulder, Massachutes Institute of Technology, Utah Valley University, University of New Hampshire, Applied Physics Laboratory, Johns Hopkins University, University of Montana, Southwest Research Institute, University of Southern California, Lockheed Martin Advanced Technology Center, University of Chicago, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, SciPrint.org, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Colorado State University, V. Alecsandri College, Bacau, Romania, Colorado School of Mines, National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Utah State University, Department of Physics, Brigham Young University, Provo, Huntsman Cancer Institute, Brigham Young University - Idaho, University of Arizona, Florida State University, Weber State University, Brigham Young University - Provo, New Mexico State University, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO 80523