This meteorite fell in Aguas Zarcas, Costa Rica, in April hitting a doghouse. Fortunately, the dog – Rocky – was not injured.
Nationalgeographic.co.id—If you’ve ever seen a shooting star, you’ve probably seen a meteor on its way to Earth.
Objects that land here are called meteorites and can be used to peer into the past, into the farthest corners of outer space or the earliest building blocks of life.
Today, scientists are reporting some of the most detailed analyzes of organic matter from two meteorites. They have identified tens of thousands of molecular “puzzle pieces,” including a much larger number of oxygen atoms than they had anticipated.
The researchers will present their results at the American Chemical Society (ACS) spring meeting.
Previously, the team led by Alan Marshall investigated the complex mixtures of organic materials found on Earth, including petroleum.
Now, however, they turned their attention to the sky—or the objects falling from them.
Meteorites like Murchison, pictured here, can help scientists understand how the moon formed.
They used very high-resolution mass spectrometry (MS) techniques. Thanks to this technique they reveal new information about the universe. Ultimately, that information could provide a window into the origins of life itself.
“This analysis gives us a sense of what’s out there, what we will encounter as we move forward as a species of ‘extraterrestrial’,” said Joseph Frye-Jones.
Joseph was a graduate student who presented the work. Marshall and Frye-Jones are researchers at Florida State University and the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory.
Thousands of meteorites fall to Earth every year, but only a few are “carbon chondrites,” a category of space rock that contains most organic matter or contains carbon.
One of the most famous is the “Murchison” meteorite, which fell in Australia in 1969 and has been studied extensively since then.
