'Fireball' meteorite that crashed in Michigan holds extraterrestrial organic compounds

[ZiprHead]

The space rock landed on a frozen lake on Jan. 16, 2018.

A meteorite that landed on a frozen lake in 2018 contains thousands of organic compounds that formed billions of years ago and could hold clues about the origins of life on Earth.

The meteor entered Earth's atmosphere on Jan. 16, 2018, after a very long journey through the freezing vacuum of space, lighting up skies over Ontario, Canada, and the midwestern United States. Weather radar tracked the flaming space rock's descent and breakup, helping meteorite hunters to quickly locate fallen fragments on Strawberry Lake in Hamburg, Michigan.

An international team of researchers then examined a walnut-size piece of the meteorite "while it was still fresh," scientists reported in a new study. Their analysis revealed more than 2,000 organic molecules dating to when our solar system was young; similar compounds may have seeded the emergence of microbial life on our planet, the study authors reported.

 

[Rhea]

Cool. That must have been quite a night for the hunters!

 

[skepticalbip]

This sounds a bit like the opening scenes of the old classic sci-fi B-movie "The Blob".

 

[lpetrich]

The fall, recovery, classification, and initial characterization of the Hamburg, Michigan H4 chondrite - Heck - - Meteoritics & Planetary Science - Wiley Online Library

The Hamburg meteorite fell on January 16, 2018, near Hamburg, Michigan, after a fireball event widely observed in the U.S. Midwest and in Ontario, Canada. Several fragments fell onto frozen surfaces of lakes and, thanks to weather radar data, were recovered days after the fall. The studied rock fragments show no or little signs of terrestrial weathering. Here, we present the initial results from an international consortium study to describe the fall, characterize the meteorite, and probe the collision history of Hamburg. About 1 kg of recovered meteorites was initially reported. Petrology, mineral chemistry, trace element and organic chemistry, and O and Cr isotopic compositions are characteristic of H4 chondrites. Cosmic ray exposure ages based on cosmogenic 3-He, 21-Ne, and 38-Ar are ~12 Ma, and roughly agree with each other. Noble gas data as well as the cosmogenic 10-Be concentration point to a small 40–60 cm diameter meteoroid. An 40-Ar‐39-Ar age of 4532 ± 24 Ma indicates no major impact event occurring later in its evolutionary history, consistent with data of other H4 chondrites. Microanalyses of phosphates with LA‐ICPMS give an average Pb‐Pb age of 4549 ± 36 Ma. This is in good agreement with the average SIMS Pb‐Pb phosphate age of 4535.3 ± 9.5 Ma and U‐Pb Concordia age of 4535 ± 10 Ma. The weighted average age of 4541.6 ± 9.5 Ma reflects the metamorphic phosphate crystallization age after parent body formation in the early solar system.

The meteorite was a  H chondrite, an ordinary sort of stony meteorite, and not a  Carbonaceous chondrite, a kind of meteorite that often has lots of organic compounds.

The age of this meteorite is typical of asteroid-meteorite ages. Meteorite dating has become good enough to help untangle the early history of the Solar System, the first tens of millions of years of it. Meteorite - The ages of meteorites and their components | Britannica and Meteorite Facts | Meteorite | Center for Meteorite Studies | ASU

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

I just can't get over how they can do all of that for determining age. Incredible science.