Organic Matter Found In Canadian Meteorite

eldavojohn writes "From what sounds like the opening of an X-Files episode, Canadian scientists have reportedly found in a meteorite organic matter older than the sun at Tagish Lake in Canada. From the article: '"We mean that the material in the meteorite has been processed the least since it was formed. The material we see today is arguably the most representative of the material that first went into making up the solar system." The meteorite likely formed in the outer reaches of the asteroid belt, but the organic material it contains probably had a far more distant origin. The globules could have originated in the Kuiper Belt group of icy planetary remnants orbiting beyond Neptune. Or they could have been created even farther afield. The globules appear to be similar to the kinds of icy grains found in molecular clouds — the vast, low-density regions where stars collapse and form and new solar systems are born.' The article implies that life could potentially survive in these meteorites and maybe even travel through space — supporting the theory that life may have arrived on earth and evolved from that point on."

Comments

Summary misleading...

[CODiNE]

From the article text :

The structures are invisible to the naked eye and resemble minute hollow balls with carbon-rich shells. A chunk of meteorite no larger than a grape could contain a billion of the tiny globules.

Theoretically, their hollow-ball shape could have presented a homey environment of concentrated organic matter where early cellular life could develop.

Such theories boast little evidence but raise many intriguing questions.

So from what I read they structures found COULD assist organic life, but are not actual evidence of them.

Re:Summary misleading...

[osu-neko]

So from what I read they structures found COULD assist organic life, but are not actual evidence of them.

That's one point of view.

There's a common myth that evidence speaks for itself. It doesn't. It just sits there on the lab table, incapable of speaking. Evidence also neither supports nor refutes any theory, these also being things evidence is incapable of doing unless the evidence is itself sentient. You're anthropomorphizing the evidence when you claim it supports or refutes a theory.

Now, various interpretations of the evidence can be used by scientists to support or refute theories. Insofar as some scientists interpret this evidence in such a way that it allows them to argue for ET-assisted biogenesis, it is evidence for that. Of course, some scientists will interpret it differently and then it won't be evidence for that.

All this is perfectly fine. Just don't make the mistake the quoted poster made, where you think there's a fact of the matter about whether this actually is or isn't evidence for one theory or another. Science doesn't work that way, that's just perpetuating a myth.

Keep in mind...

[RyanFenton]

Keep in mind that organic does NOT = life, just a precursor to life. Organic molecules/matter are generally just molecules containing carbon and hydrogen making a chainlike skeleton of atoms, with oxygen and/or nitrogen depending on if it is a protein. (Source). This DOES back up the hypothesis that organic molecules can form just as well outside of early earth, as in. It'll be interesting to hear just what the molecules were, but I doubt this will spawn any new theories about the extra-solar genesis of life on earth. It doesn't take special space-dust to provide organic compounds in the early earth - just the atoms from the life cycle of stars spreading heavier elements.

Ryan Fenton

Re:More like "Deception Point" than the X-Files

[value_added]

He has good novels?

LOL. True story:

Recently, I was trying to chat up a very attractive girl. I mentioned in our harried conversation (she was at work) that I enjoyed reading but hadn't been to the bookstore in ages, blah blah. She told me that she, too, loved to read, and promised to bring in some of her favourites for me. Great, I thought! This could be the start of something interesting.

A few days later I stop in to see her and she smiles and points to a small bag 'o books in the corner. How sweet, right? Well, inside the bag were 4 were Dan Brown novels. Cervantes I wasn't expecting, but Dan Brown? I tried reading one of them (maybe I was wrong about him), but the absence of any writing talent in combination with an absurd plot reminded so much of high school that all I could was groan and put the book back in the bag with the others.

Haven't been back to see her since. It's been a month, but I wonder whether that's not long enough.

Re:how to measure the age

[Bemopolis]

First, just to whip out my creds I have a doctorate in astronomy, although not in this sub-field...

The typical way to set an age of a very old object is, as you note, by looking at its radioactive decay history. A good chronometer for meteorites is uranium, both U238 and U235. They have different decay rates, so the difference between the starting and ending abundance ratio of the two gives you the age. As you note, the trick is to determine what the starting ratio is; this is largely an educated guess, but presumably the population seen in the meteorite was created in the same supernova explosion, so a little nuclear physics tells you what that should be (Google 'neutron drip line'). A good check on the result is to also look at the isotope ratio of lead: Pb207 is the daughter of U238 decay, and Pb206 the daughter of U235. There are several other useful decays to check (Al26 comes to mind), so while it's admittedly a house of cards (but so is everything in astronomy, really) , it is at least more than one card.

And, not to be critical, but your description of determining the ages of stars is...off. To be fair, it is a difficult method to both explain and perform for individual stars.