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

Panspermia

[symbolset]

Attributed to Anaxagoras ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anaxagoras ) in the 5th century BCE. Basically the idea the precursors to life are everywhere in the universe, allowing that life on earth may have sprung from this source.

It seems plausible. This evidence doesn't prove it though.

FTA:

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.

Fullerene? That would explain a lot about the persistence of these structures through the process of transport and reentry.

Disclaimer: "God moves in mysterious ways His wonders to perform." - William Cowper ( for varying values of "God", "mysterious", "wonders" - symbolset )

Re:Extra-solar life?

[edbarbar]

I don't believe gravity is a huge impediment to life moving around:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox.

Think about how far humankind will advance in 50 years, and whether we would be able to make a micro-replicator that we could send to other stars.

great balls of fire

[phyruxus]

iirc, only the outermost few centimeters of any incoming meteor are ever heated. If you come upon a just-crashed meteorite that is broken open, it will be cold on the inside, and the outside will be cool to the touch in (again iirc) minutes.