Organic matter found In canadian meteorite

Organic globules found in a meteorite that slammed into Canada`s Tagish Lake may be
older than our sun, a new study says.

The ancient materials could offer a glimpse into the solar system`s planet-building past
and may even provide clues to how life on Earth first arose.

"We don`t really look at this research as telling us something about [the meteorite
itself] as much as telling us something about the origins of the solar system," said Scott
Messenger of the NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas.

Most of the meteorite`s material is about the same age as our solar system-about 4.5
billion years-and was likely formed at the same time (tour a virtual solar system).

But the microscopic organic globules that make up about one-tenth of one percent of
the object appear to be far older.

In a study appearing in tomorrow`s issue of the journal Science, Messenger and

colleagues report that isotopic anomalies in the globules suggest that they formed in
very cold conditions-near absolute zero.

"What`s really striking about this is that these globules clearly could not possibly have
formed where [the meteorite] itself formed," Messenger said.

"Under those extreme conditions the air that you`d breathe would be solid ice. You
would never find those conditions in the asteroid belt or anywhere close to the sun."

Cold Origins

The Tagish Lake meteorite flashed across Earth`s northern sky in January 2000.

Most of the object burned up in the atmosphere, but pieces of it crashed in Canada`s
frozen, sparsely populated Yukon Territory and northern British Columbia (map of
Canada).

"It`s the lowest density meteorite that`s ever been studied," said Peter Brown, a meteor
expert and professor at the University of Western Ontario in Canada.

"It`s extremely friable"-easily pulverized-"and the material breaks up very easily."