More exciting news from the world of meteorite studies this week. For the first time ever all the ingredients needed for life have been found in meteorites. Specifically, two meteorites, both of which fell to Earth in 1998. One, the Monahans meteorite, fell in Texas, interrupting a kid's basketball game in the process. The other, the Zag meteorite, fell in Morocco.
What is exciting to me personally is that I happen to own a nice full slice of Zag. A full slice simply means it is a full cross sectional slice of a complete stone from the shower of stones that comprise the Zag fall. A Westerner actually collected many of the samples, packing them out of the desert via camel.
Here are a couple of stories describing this exciting news:
http://www.nbc-2.com/story/37259236/...ashed-to-earth
http://en.brinkwire.com/86227/these-...ents-for-life/
And here is the scientific paper describing the study of these two meteorites:
http://advances.sciencemag.org/conte...o3521.full.pdf
Zag is what is known as a ordinary chondrite meteorite. They are divided into H Chondrites, meaning they contain a high amount of free nickel-iron metal in a stony matrix, and L Chrondrites, containing a low amount of free nickel-iron metal in a stony matrix. There are other types of Chondrites meteorites, but no point getting too technical in this thread. Zag is an H Chondrite, and my photos below will show all the nickel-iron metal embedded in the stony matrix. Notice that Zag is a breccia, meaning it is made up of various mineral components cemented together. You can see in the slice below this breccia composition.
Early in the Earth's history, our planet was bombarded by meteorites, and the theory has long been around that meteorite bombardment created the conditions needed for the appearance of life by delivering organic compounds. Now, with this latest discovery, it is possible to imagine meteorite bombardment may have created the conditions for life to develop anywhere such meteorites fell, dependent of course on other factors beside simply just the ingredients needed to develop carbon based life as we know it. These are the first two meteorites found to contain all the ingredients needed for the development of life.
Here is the slice from my collection. Notice the breccia composition, and all the free nickel-iron grains visible on the right side. That metal is actually uniformally distributed, as seen in the last photo. You have to angle the slice in the light just right to see all the metal, so I've included photos that show the breccia composition well, and one that shows the scattering of metal well. Most stony meteorites, but not all, contain grains of nickel-iron metal.
What is exciting to me personally is that I happen to own a nice full slice of Zag. A full slice simply means it is a full cross sectional slice of a complete stone from the shower of stones that comprise the Zag fall. A Westerner actually collected many of the samples, packing them out of the desert via camel.
Here are a couple of stories describing this exciting news:
http://www.nbc-2.com/story/37259236/...ashed-to-earth
http://en.brinkwire.com/86227/these-...ents-for-life/
And here is the scientific paper describing the study of these two meteorites:
http://advances.sciencemag.org/conte...o3521.full.pdf
Zag is what is known as a ordinary chondrite meteorite. They are divided into H Chondrites, meaning they contain a high amount of free nickel-iron metal in a stony matrix, and L Chrondrites, containing a low amount of free nickel-iron metal in a stony matrix. There are other types of Chondrites meteorites, but no point getting too technical in this thread. Zag is an H Chondrite, and my photos below will show all the nickel-iron metal embedded in the stony matrix. Notice that Zag is a breccia, meaning it is made up of various mineral components cemented together. You can see in the slice below this breccia composition.
Early in the Earth's history, our planet was bombarded by meteorites, and the theory has long been around that meteorite bombardment created the conditions needed for the appearance of life by delivering organic compounds. Now, with this latest discovery, it is possible to imagine meteorite bombardment may have created the conditions for life to develop anywhere such meteorites fell, dependent of course on other factors beside simply just the ingredients needed to develop carbon based life as we know it. These are the first two meteorites found to contain all the ingredients needed for the development of life.
Here is the slice from my collection. Notice the breccia composition, and all the free nickel-iron grains visible on the right side. That metal is actually uniformally distributed, as seen in the last photo. You have to angle the slice in the light just right to see all the metal, so I've included photos that show the breccia composition well, and one that shows the scattering of metal well. Most stony meteorites, but not all, contain grains of nickel-iron metal.
Comment