Edward Anders, Pioneering Cosmochemist and Holocaust Researcher, Passes Away at 98

Edward Anders, a distinguished cosmochemist who solved key puzzles about the solar system’s formation and the catastrophic wildfires linked to the dinosaurs’ extinction—and who later devoted his retirement years to identifying thousands of Holocaust victims from his hometown—passed away on June 1 in San Mateo, California. He was 98 years old.

His passing at an assisted living facility was confirmed by his son, George.

After surviving Nazi occupation in Liepaja, Latvia during World War II—thanks in part to his mother’s quick thinking in convincing soldiers she was of Aryan descent—Anders emigrated to the United States in 1949. His father, unfortunately, did not survive the war.

Settling in New York City, Anders enrolled at Columbia University where a pivotal moment came when a professor, also a curator at the American Museum of Natural History, brought meteorite samples into the classroom.

Reflecting on that experience in a 2001 interview with the journal Meteoritics & Planetary Science, Anders described the meteorites as “tremendously exciting” and even “romantic,” emphasizing the unique opportunity to study ancient rocks from beyond Earth’s orbit that predate any terrestrial material.

Beginning in 1955, Anders spent over three decades at the University of Chicago, where he conducted groundbreaking research into the solar system’s early history.

His work conclusively showed that meteorites were fragments of asteroids rather than debris from the moon or comets, as had been previously thought. He also produced a seminal journal article quantifying the elemental makeup of the solar system—a paper cited more than 14,000 times. Additionally, Anders uncovered evidence of massive global wildfires that contributed to the extinction of the dinosaurs.