A meteorite's pristine origins.A rare, carbon-rich meteorite meteorite, meteor that survives the intense heat of atmospheric friction and reaches the earth's surface. Because of the destructive effects of this friction, only the very largest meteors become meteorites. that fell into a frozen Canadian lake early last year (SN: 4/8/00, p. 235) ranks as the most pristine of such specimens ever found, report the researchers who conducted the first chemical analyses. The Taglish Lake meteorite is classified as a carbonaceous chondrite, one of the first group of meteorites to have formed in the solar system. The rock contains buckyballs--soccerball-shaped molecules made of carbon--filled with the inert gases helium and argon argon (är`gŏn) [Gr.,=inert], gaseous chemical element; symbol Ar; at. no. 18; at. wt. 39.948; m.p. −189.2°C;; b.p. −185.7°C;; density 1.784 grams per liter at STP; valence 0. . The ratio of helium to argon that the scientists measured matches the ratio that astronomers calculate was present in the cloud Refers to the operation taking place within a network. See cloud. of gas and dust that surrounded the young sun and provided the raw material for the planets. That finding indicates the Tagish Lake meteorite The Tagish Lake meteorite impacted the Earth on January 18 2000; the reported sighting in the Tagish Lake area in the Yukon Territory and northern British Columbia, Canada was followed-up by gathering more than 500 fragments of the meteorite, collected upon the lake's frozen has preserved chemical elements that developed or accumulated early in the history of the solar system, according to chemist Sandra Pizzarello of Arizona State University Arizona State University, at Tempe; coeducational; opened 1886 as a normal school, became 1925 Tempe State Teachers College, renamed 1945 Arizona State College at Tempe. Its present name was adopted in 1958. in Tempe and her colleagues. They report their findings in the Sept. 21 SCIENCE. The presence of bucky-balls and other carbon molecules could hold clues to the chemical evolution that preceded life in the solar system. In contrast to the Murchison meteorite, another carbon-rich rock, the Taglish Lake object contains virtually no amino acids and only simple organic compounds. That could prove disappointing to scientists who had hoped to find in the meteorite a reservoir of materials essential to life, but the rock's chemical constituents "still might have contributed molecular precursors of biomolecules This page aims to list articles on Wikipedia that describe particular biomolecules or types of biomolecules. This list is not necessarily complete or up to date - if you see an article that should be here but isn't (or one that shouldn't be here but is), please update the page to the origins of life," says Pizzarello. |
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