by Betty Culley
“Can James come, too?”
“Absolutely.”
“We could see the Ahnighito.”
“Certainly. I will be very interested in your impressions of the Ahnighito. Speaking of which, when I reference your meteorite to my team, what shall I call it? Have you come up with a name?”
The answer comes out of my mouth as if I knew it all along.
“Hat. Birdie named it the first time she saw it. You can tell your team it’s called Hat.”
“Hat,” Miles Morgan repeats. “That’s quite appropriate. I will share that moniker with my team. Also, please tell your parents to expect a letter with all the relevant information about a possible visit. For instance, we have a residence reserved for visiting scientists where you and your family can stay, and a museum fund to cover travel expenses.”
“Thank you, Dr. Morgan, I will look for your letter in the mailbox.”
Just as I hang up the phone, there’s a sudden rainstorm. I go back out on the porch. The rain smells like the big rock mixed with the sweet smell of boiling sap.
I think about all the things that came to Bower Hill: the meteorite, the new stream, and the sandhill cranes. Bower Hill is the same but it’s different. We’re revolving around the sun five hundred and eighty-four million miles every year. The universe is too big to imagine, but from all that distance, it brought me a stone from the sky.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
What are the chances of finding a rock from space?
Henry’s uncle Lincoln would probably say the chances of discovering a rock from space (a meteorite) are 50 percent, either you will or you won’t! I’ve never found a meteorite myself, although I always keep an eye out for one. They’re easiest to spot in sandy deserts or on the snow in polar regions. It’s possible that you might see one fall to Earth. Or a meteorite could already be lying in your backyard or field or city street.
Are the Hoba and the Ahnighito real meteorites?
Yes! The iron Hoba meteorite, the largest one ever found, fell in Namibia, Africa, and weighs sixty tons. Because it was so heavy, it was never moved from where it fell. The Ahnighito, named “Tent” by the Inughuit, the people of northern Greenland, is the third-largest meteorite. It collided with Earth about 10,000 years ago, weighs thirty-four tons, and is made of iron-nickel alloy. It is on exhibit at the Arthur Ross Hall of Meteorites in the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. Visitors are able to see and touch its fusion crust and the two polished spots on its surface.
Many Inughuit feel the Tent/Ahnighito meteorite was taken from them by Admiral Peary without their consent, and they wonder what the economic situation in the area might be today if the meteorite had remained in the region. There is also the sad and disturbing history of the Inughuit people brought to New York City, along with the meteorite. Their stories can be found in the books Give Me My Father’s Body and Minik: The New York Eskimo: An Arctic Explorer, a Museum, and the Betrayal of the Inuit People by Kenn Harper.
Could a meteorite cause a flood?
Whether a meteorite could ever draw water from the ground is not known—that’s where I let my imagination take flight when writing this book. But some scientists believe most water on Earth was first brought here by asteroids and comets hitting the planet.
Could a space object from outside our solar system ever land on Earth?
In 2017, ‘Oumuamua (Hawaiian for “a messenger from afar arriving first”), the first object from another star, was observed. It was shaped unlike anything seen before in space, ten times as long as it was wide (think of a pencil shape half a mile long and wider than a house!), with an orbit that was not bound by the sun’s gravity. It was thought to be traveling through the Milky Way for hundreds of millions of years before it came into view. It didn’t collide with Earth and was only visible for a short time before it continued on its journey.
In 2019, 21/Borisov, the first interstellar comet, arced across our solar system. Scientists think it may have originated around a red dwarf star, a much smaller and dimmer star than our sun.
Neither ‘Oumuamua nor 21/Borisov came close to Earth, but it raises the possibility that a piece of another star system could one day make its way here.
Does dowsing really work?
Where I live, out in the country in Maine, many homes don’t have access to a public water supply. Many of us have to develop our own water system. Some people get a backhoe operator to dig them a shallow well. Other people hire a drilling rig like Henry’s father’s to bore deep into hard granite to reach water from an aquifer.
When you don’t have water, one of the things you do is spend a lot of time thinking about how to get it. Over the years, our dug well often went dry in late summer, and my family had to haul water from a nearby spring for two grown-ups, two children, two horses, and a pony! And horses drink five to twenty times more water in a day than people do.
When a dowser finally dowsed us a new deep well, we didn’t hit a gusher, but luckily our well has never run dry.
Are you a dowser? Or do you have another gift? You’ll never know until you try to use it, so I hope you do!
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
With gratitude to Steven Chudney, who is 100 percent the best agent. Thank you for all you’ve taught me and for your dedication.
It’s a dream come true working with editor Phoebe Yeh. From our first conversation, I was so excited by your vision for the book. Thank you for encouraging me to dig deeper and for knowing just what was needed.
With deep appreciation to the rest of the team at Crown Books for Young Readers who helped bring this book into the world, Elizabeth Stranahan and Melinda Ackell, and to Robert Frank Hunter and Katrina Damkoehler for the gorgeous cover and beautifully inspired book design.
To Dr. Denton S. Ebel, curator (meteorites), American Museum of Natural History, New York—thank you so much for sharing your knowledge about meteorites and space.
Writers Cathy McKelway, Sally Stanton, and Melanie Ellsworth, the greatest critique partners ever, for all your support.
A special thanks to early reader Greta Limberger.
And to anyone who has ever looked at a rock and wondered what it was made of and where it came from, or looked at the sky and tried to imagine what was out there beyond our sight and reach.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Betty Culley’s debut YA novel in verse, Three Things I Know Are True, was a Kids’ Indie Next List Top Ten Pick and an ALA-YALSA Best Fiction for Young Adults nominee. Her first middle-grade novel, Down to Earth, is inspired by her fascination with meteorites, voyagers from another place and time. She’s worked as a pediatric nurse and lives in a small town in central Maine.
bettyculley.com
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