When a plea from a British school teacher was posted to an international science listserve, Nevada meteorite hunter Ralph “Sonny” Clary made the educator’s seemingly impossible request come true.

In May of 2009, Matthew Smith a teacher in Liverpool, England sent an email to an online forum devoted to meteorites. With a very small acquisitions budget, Mr. Smith was hoping to acquire a few space rocks, to assist with presentations for his students. Sonny Clary, a highly experienced meteorite hunter based in Nevada had just the thing.

Meteorite hunter Ralph "Sonny" Clary takes a compass bearing during a desert expedition

In 2007 Sonny made an extraordinary discovery on an ancient dry lake bed in the American Southwest. While scouting for possible hunting locations he came across a debris field of stone meteorite fragments. He collected numerous pieces and donated representative samples to academia, so the new meteorite could be studied and classified.

After reading Mr. Smith’s request, Sonny packed up more than 90 of the meteorites he’d found, and shipped them to the UK—as a cosmic gift.

More than 90 space rocks donated to a British school by Sonny arrive in the UK

When asked how much the meteorites were worth, Sonny replied: “I feel the true value of these meteorites is being lucky enough to hunt for and find them, and being able to share that excitement with the students by donating to their school and allowing them to experience holding and owning a rock from the asteroid belt. This may help spark the next generation of meteorite enthusiasts.”

He is modest indeed. In total, the meteorite specimens that Sonny donated weighed about five pounds. A conservative estimate would put their retail value at $2,000.

Sonny (left) and his great friend, the late Professor Jim Kriegh planning a desert expedition

Mr. Smith will be writing an article about Sonny’s generous donation for an upcoming issue of Meteorite magazine. The quarterly science journal is published by the Arkansas Center for Space and Planetary Sciences in Fayetteville, but the editorial team, Nancy and Dr. Larry Lebofsky, are Tucson residents.

English school kids showing off their new space rocks

Looking at the photographs of the enthralled English schoolchildren holding their new meteorites reminded me of something Alexis R. Faust, educator and executive director of the Flandrau Science Center said to me during a recent visit: “It gives you a different perspective on the world when you see it through the eyes of children. It’s rejuvenating.”

The author, looking very haggard (above left) and Sonny after a particularly grueling expedition. Sonny is an expert camper and outdoorsman and I've learned a lot from him.

Sonny Clary is a great example of how one individual can get a classrom full of children excited about science. Those look like some happy kids to me, and I can only imagine how amazed I would have been—when I was a school boy in England back in the 1970s—if an American adventurer had mailed me a space rock.

My compliments to Sonny.

I suppose one of the most conflicted elements of my personality is that I cannot stand watching television but I absolutely love making it. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not the programming I object to, but the commercials. There’s not much I find more annoying than having a paid actor yelling at me to buy a new car or hamburger when I’m trying to enjoy Star Trek re-runs.

So, understandably, some of my close friends were astounded when I admitted that I recently caved in and ordered digital cable. “But you have to understand,” I implored them. “It’s only so I can throw a broadcast party for my own show.” A pretty solid excuse right?

About 17 months ago my great friend and fellow explorer, professional meteorite hunter Steve Arnold, and I started work on a new adventure documentary, Meteorite Men, for Science Channel. I was thrilled to learn that our Director of Photography would be the brilliant Randall Love who has worked for Lucas Films, Disney, HBO, the BBC, you name it.

The Logical Lizard (above left) and his long-time expedition partner, Steve Arnold, digging space rocks. Photograph by Caroline Palmer.

In the new show we travel to rural Kansas and dig for giant meteorites, buried for thousands of years; pay a visit to the brainiacs at ASU’s fab Center for Meteorite Studies and get to play in their gazillion-dollar iBeAM lab; then skulk along to a second hunting location, so secret everybody on the crew had to sign confidentiality agreements before we’d let them film. They were very understanding about all of our shenanigans.

Meteorite Men airs tonight, June 3, on Science Channel and Science Channel HD at 6 pm in Tucson. It repeats June 4 and 5 and complete Meteorite Men showtimes are here. If the idea of mixing rocks, treasure hunting, astronomy and adventure with some dry comedy sounds watchable to you, please tune in. I won’t spoil it by telling you what we found on the expeditions, but I promise you the rocks are the real stars of the show. Fallen stars.

In "Meteorite Men" we are hoping to find pieces of the famous Brenham pallasite. Pallasites are meteorites packed with extraterrestrial peridot gemstones, as shown in this detail. Photograph by Geoffrey Notkin © Oscar E. Monnig Meteorite Gallery.