Robert Hutchison

Robert Hutchison, meteoriticist: born Glasgow 22 July 1938; Scientific Officer, Geological Survey of Nigeria 1965-67; Senior Scientific Officer, Department of Mineralogy, British Museum (Natural History) (later Natural History Museum) 1969-73, Principal Scientific Officer 1973-97, Scientific Associate 1997-2007; married 1962 Marie McKinstery (one daughter); died Cambridge 26 January 2007.

Robert Hutchison spent the greater part of his scientific career at the Natural History Museum in London. He was Head of the Cosmic Mineralogy Research Programme, and responsible for the national meteorite collection, one of the most significant meteorite collections in the world.

He joined the British Museum (Natural History) - as it was then formally called - in 1969, to work in the Department of Mineralogy. In later years, he would joke that 1969 was the most significant year in the history of research into extraterrestrial materials: Neil Armstrong returned the first Apollo samples to Earth; two unusual meteorites were observed to fall; the first group of Antarctic meteorites was discovered - and he became involved with the study of meteorites.

Hutchison was active in several fields within meteoritics. Among his most significant contributions was recognising the young age of the Nakhla meteorite (which led to the whole concept of meteorites from Mars), and then going on to detect hydrated minerals in Martian and asteroidal meteorites, allowing deductions to be made concerning water flow on planetary bodies.

His main interest, though, was the detailed study of the composition of one particular component of stony meteorites: chondrules. These are millimetre-sized, generally spherical objects made mainly from iron-magnesium silicates, with an age that implies they were one of the earliest objects formed as the Sun and planets grew.

The origin and evolution of chondrules is an issue that has been hotly debated ever since meteorites became a subject of serious study, and Hutchison was at the forefront of the party that argued for production of the materials in a planetary, rather than a nebular, setting. For much of his career, Hutchison's conclusions on this issue were not accepted, but, over the past few years, the tide of opinion was beginning to change.

Almost as a sideline, Hutchison discovered a large igneous clast inside one particular meteorite that had an age a few million years older than expected. The existence of this once-molten clast inside an unmelted meteorite is a significant piece of evidence used to infer the timing of processes that built and shaped the Solar System.

In addition to his own work, Bob Hutchison (or Hutch, as he was often known) facilitated 30 years of amazingly diverse investigations by aspiring meteoriticists, not just from the UK but on a world-wide scale, as well as building up a small but excellent research group within the Natural History Museum.

With his encyclopaedic recall of material in the NHM collection and in others around the world, Hutchison was a great help to other investigators in reaching their goals. A researcher might come to him with half a plan and go away with a set of materials from the NHM collection - as well as a careful list of what to request from the other leading meteorite collections of Paris, Vienna or Washington to complete the project.

Hutchison was not a laboratory man - although he was a superb microscopist, both optical and electron, he was at heart a field geologist. Before he came to the museum, he qualified in Geology at Glasgow University, having been born and raised in the city, and then had appointments at Leeds University (as a post-doctoral fellow) and the Geological Survey of Nigeria. Once established in meteoritics, he led expeditions to China and in Australia to search for meteorites, and was one of the instigators of a European Antarctic meteorite collection initiative.

He authored almost 100 peer-reviewed papers and two popular books on meteorites, The Search for Our Beginning (1983) and Meteorites (1993); he felt that the public, as taxpayers, footed the bill for his work and had a right to access it. He also edited the third and fourth editions of Catalogue of Meteorites (1977 and 1985), the international database of all recorded meteorite recoveries.

Hutchison officially retired from the NHM in 1997, but he did not stop work. He took early retirement so that he could devote his time to completing the definitive textbook on meteorites. Meteorites: a petrologic, chemical and isotopic synthesis was published in 2004, and is currently, and will be, for at least the next decade, the standard text on meteoritics for students.

Bob Hutchison was a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society, the Meteoritical Society and the Mineralogical Society, all international societies of professional scientists. In 2002 he was awarded the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society. The International Astronomical Union named asteroid 5308 "Hutchison" in his honour.

Monica M. Grady