Clues to the Origins of Life
The high concentration of salt in briny fluids can potentially create molecules crucial to life on Earth. Brines allow phosphate to remain in solution and can catalyze chemical reactions between organics and precipitate minerals.
“Isotope studies of carbon and nitrogen suggest that primitive carbonaceous chondrites, including CM-types, delivered organic matter to the early Earth,” said cosmochemist Queenie Chan of Royal Holloway University of London, England, and biogeochemist Nana Ogawa of the Biogeochemistry Research Center at the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology. “The Hillsborough meteorite contained 1.8% by weight of carbon and 0.07% of nitrogen, and had carbon and nitrogen isotopes typical for CM-type meteorites.”
The meteorite contained a wide variety of soluble organic compounds, and its compositional range confirms that the Hillsborough meteorite was more altered by water than most other CM-type meteorites.
“A high fraction of compounds were the product of organic chemistry with minerals,” said organic mass spectrometry specialist Phil Schmitt-Kopplin of Technical University Munich. “We do not know if these magnesium organic compounds were contributed by brine chemistry or were simply left over from earlier impact shock processes.”
In living organisms, organo-metallic compounds are found in blood and used in photosynthesis. Among the soluble organic compounds were also many amino acids, similar to those found in more moderately altered CM2 chondrites.
Astrobiologist Danny Glavin of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, and his team in Goddard’s Astrobiology Analytical Lab, concluded that the delivery of amino acids, carboxylic acids, and other soluble organic molecules by CM-type bodies may have contributed to the prebiotic organic inventory that preceded the emergence of life on Earth. Their analysis suggests the complex distribution of amino acids observed in the Hillsborough meteorite formed within the parent body, likely assisted by brine fluid chemistry.
Some of the meteorite fragments will be curated at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City.
“We are thrilled that nature delivered such a precious asteroid sample on our doorstep,” said curator Denton Ebel.
Read the original paper: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.aea2105
About the SETI Institute
Founded in 1984, the SETI Institute is a non-profit, multi-disciplinary research and education organization whose mission is to lead humanity’s quest to understand the origins and prevalence of life and intelligence in the Universe and to share that knowledge with the world. Our research encompasses the physical and biological sciences and leverages expertise in data analytics, machine learning and advanced signal detection technologies. The SETI Institute is a distinguished research partner for industry, academia and government agencies, including NASA and NSF.
About JAMSTEC’s Biogeochemistry Research Center
The Biogeochemistry Research Center (BGC) at the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC) investigates the origins and evolution of life-related primordial organic matter through chemical and isotopic analyses. Its research includes studies of asteroid samples (i.e., Ryugu, Bennu) and carbonaceous meteorite samples, contributing to our understanding of the pristine chemical processes in molecular evolution.
Contact information
Rebecca McDonald
Director of Communications
SETI Institute
[email protected]
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