From: Matthias Bärmann <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] organics in Muchison.....
To: [email protected], [email protected]
Date: Tuesday, February 16, 2010, 4:39 PM
Hello Zelimir & Murchisionados,
highly interesting indeed: thanks so much for informing us
about your and your colleagues scientific work and giving us
so the feeling of being privileged enough to sit in the very
first row.
If I understand your approach correct, your non-targeted
focus of investigation leads directly to a highly diverse
pattern.
The last sentence of the abstract reads: "This molecular
complexity, which provides hints on heteroatoms
chronological assembly, suggests that the extraterrestrial
chemodiversity is high compared to terrestrial relevant
biological- and biogeochemical-driven chemical space." The
high level of extraterrestrial chemodiversity vs. the less
diverse terrestrial "chemical space" - could that mean that
development of life could depend on a kind of reduction of
diversity? Caused by selection (= "targetting"?)? Life would
be essentially linked to a process of picking up elements
out of the construction kit? But than it begins to play by
combining them? Wouldn't that point to the necessity to make
a strong distinction between diversity and complexity? Could
that mean that the complexity of terrestrial biological and
biochemical "space" is a result of reduction of (initial)
diversity?
Perhaps six (crazy) questions too much from a non-natural
scientist ...
Best regards,
Matthias B.
----- Original Message ----- From: <[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Tuesday, February 16, 2010 9:58 PM
Subject: [meteorite-list] organics in Muchison.....
Darren, list,
The media info Darren is speaking about refers to the
research we (a
group of scientists) are being conducting since several
months on
Murchison, namely a non targeted analysis of its
extraterrestrial
organic contents.
In a post I sent by end of last September, I had notified
the list of
that work by just mentioning the keywords "Murchison" and
"organic
contant".
The paper, that was submitted for publication in due time
(right in
time for the 40th anniversary of Murchison fall), was just
anounced
released out of press a couple of hours ago.
Here is the reference: PNAS, 107 (7), 2763 -2768 (2010).
Abstract can be read here:
http://www.pnas.org/content/107/7/2763
More discussions are available through various media press
comments
(easily found by Googling with keys: "Murchison, Phillippe
Schmitt-Kopplin").
May I just insist that the incredible number of molecules
we had found
originated from the fact that the screening was not
targeted.
Also we never claimed that any of the hundreds of thousands
of
molecules we detected had a pre-biotic origin, something
that seems to
provoke debate in the media.
Our work just shows there's no shortage of molecules on
meteorites in
general, and in Murchison, taken as reference in
particular, that
origin-of-life researchers could investigate...
Those familtar with Ensisheim shows might remember that
Philippe
(Phil) was our new enthroned Ensisheim meteorite guardian
in 2008.
Phil is the head of the lab in Neuherberg (Munich) where
all the
measurements (combined FTICR-MS,NMR & GC) were run.
We all, co-authors, are deeply indebted to him for his
discern and
faith in initiating that challenging research and for his
expertise
that caused its success beyond any of our initial
expectations.
So far we have recorded tons of other data on "many more"
other
meteorites. More exciting and weird results are coming
continuously;
thay will be published in the months to come.
My best wishes,
Zelimir
Shawn Alan <[email protected]>
a écrit :
Darren and List
Thank you for the read up on Murchison meteorite on
how scientist have identified over 14,000 compounds
and counting. While we are on the topic of Murchison
meteorite, I came across an article on line that
points out these interesting facts and finds on the
Murchison as quoted from the article as follows....
"Presolar grains are the oldest materials in the solar
system," says Philipp Heck of the University of Chicago.
"The ages of the grains clearly indicate that they are
older than the solar system."
But just how old?
Heck and his colleagues isolated 22 grains from the
Murchison meteorite, which is well-known for the
organic material it contains, and measured how long
the grains spent in interstellar space before winding
up
in our nascent solar system. The implied grain ages,
reported in a recent paper of the Astrophysical
Journal,
appear to support a hypothesis that our solar system
formed after a smaller satellite galaxy crashed into the
Milky Way around 6 billion years ago."......
"From the isotope abundances, the researchers estimate
that the majority of grains spent between 3
and 200 million years in interstellar space before
falling into our molecular cloud some 4.6 billion
years ago."
Here is the link to the article I found on line.
http://www.astrobio.net/pdffiles/news_3202.pdf
and if your up for a read, here is an article on the
age of presolar SiC grains found in Murchison
meteorite.
http://presolar.wustl.edu/ref/Gyngard09b.pdf
Enjoy
Shawn Alan
[meteorite-list] Murchison-- chock full o' stuffDarren
Garrison cynapse at charter.net
Tue Feb 16 00:25:30 EST 2010
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http://news.discovery.com/space/meteorite-crammed-with-millions-of-organic-compounds.html
Meteorite Crammed with 'Millions' of Organic
Compounds
By Ian O'Neill | Mon Feb 15, 2010 04:52 PM ET
A meteorite that hit the town of Murchison, Australia,
hasn't quit giving up its
secrets.
The Murchison meteorite is one of the most studied
space rocks because many
pieces were recovered after it was seen breaking up as
it fell through the
atmosphere in 1969. Approximately 100 kg of the
carbonaceous chondrite was
recovered.
Carbonaceous chondrites are extremely important to
scientists as they were
formed from material that existed in the solar
system's planet-forming disk of
gas and dust. They are, quite literally, time capsules
holding onto a 4 billion
year old record of the birth of our solar system.
In this case, the Murchison meteorite has given us
another clue as to the
abundance of organic chemicals that existed before the
Earth had formed. In
fact, this particular meteorite may have originated
from material older than our
sun.
"We are really excited. When I first studied it and
saw the complexity I was so
amazed," said Dr Phillipe Schmitt-Kopplin, of the
Institute for Ecological
Chemistry in Neuherberg, Germany.
"Meteorites are like some kind of fossil. When you try
to understand them you
are looking back in time."
This new research made use of high resolution
spectroscopic tools to identify
the various compounds inside. Although this meteorite
has provided scientists
with vast amounts of information about specific
carbon-based organics before,
this was the first non-targeted study. In other words,
the researchers weren't
tracking down just one type of chemical, they did a
broad analysis for all the
chemicals it might contain.
And what they found came as a shock, it appears that
the primordial solar system
probably had a higher chemical diversity than
present-day Earth.
In this study, 14,000 specific compounds including 70
amino acids were
identified. But this number appears to be the tip of
the iceberg; the meteorite
probably contains millions of different organic
compounds. More detailed
analysis will now be carried out.
But why is this important? To understand the diversity
of organic chemicals that
were floating around a primordial solar system will
help us understand how life
may have appeared on Earth. This particular chunk of
carbonaceous chondrite
drifted through the gas and dust of the early solar
system, collecting all the
basic organic chemistry from around that time, does
that mean diverse organic
chemistry is the "norm" for proto-planetary star
systems?
These organic compounds are known to exist on comets,
asteroids and other
planetary bodies, so what makes Earth the hothouse of
life when everywhere else
seems to be lifeless?
If organic chemistry is ubiquitous, perhaps planning
to "seed" young star
systems with Earth-based life isn't such a good idea.
The conditions for life
may not be that rare after all.
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