Nov 30 2006
From The Space Library
Scientists released research indicating that a meteorite that had crashed to Earth in 2000 contained chemical compounds that were basic to all life forms already existing on Earth. A team of researchers led by Keiko Nakamura-Messenger of NASA’s JSC had examined portions of the meteorite, which had landed in northern British Columbia’s Tagish Lake. They had found that the meteorite was uncontaminated by organic material from Earth or from collisions with other space rocks but was, nevertheless, mostly composed of small carbon spheres, mixed with hydrogen and nitrogen—all organic material. The team’s research also indicated that the meteorite’s materials could be more than 4.5 million years old, more ancient than either the Earth or the Sun. The scientists postulated that the meteorite might have acquired the organic matter from the solar system’s outer regions, which are sufficiently cold for the formation of hydrogen and nitrogen isotopes. However, the researchers also stated that further research was necessary to determine whether comets and meteorites had provided the building blocks for early life on Earth, as some scientists theorized.
Tom Spears, “Space Rock Might Tell Us How Life Began on Earth,” Gazette (Montreal), 1 December 2006; Keiko Nakamura-Messenger et al., “Organic Globules in the Tagish Lake Meteorite: Remnants of the Protosolar Disk,” Science 314, no. 5804 (1 December 2006): 1439–1442, http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/314/5804/1439 (DOI 10.1126/science.1132175; accessed 18 August 2010).
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