Last month, I had the opportunity to visit the Center for Meteorite Studies (CMS) on the Arizona State University campus in Tempe, Arizona. Oh, my!
I was there with Astronomy contributing editor Ray Shubinski who will be writing a story about the CMS for the magazine. Our host, CMS director Meenakshi Wadhwa gave us an in-depth tour of the Center’s facilities and collections.
For two old-time meteorite hounds like Ray and myself, being in the “vault” at the CMS was akin to being behind the scenes at the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame, handling Babe Ruth’s bat. Until I visited the CMS, I thought I had a fair meteorite collection. At least I thought I knew people with significant collections. Ha!
The CMS has examples of — get this — roughly 1,600 different meteorites. That’s a lot of rocks from space! Its collection features multiple examples of most falls. In fact, single specimens represent only the rarest meteorites.
The CMS doesn’t normally conduct tours of its inner workings, but if you happen to be at Arizona State University, it’s worth a walk over to see their room-sized mini museum. In one of the cases, the staff of the CMS features a “meteorite of the month.” Oh, and a word to the wise: As with any college campus, parking can be a nightmare.