Two meteorites are providing a detailed look into outer space

Date:
March 27, 2023
Source:
American Chemical Society
Summary:
If you've ever seen a shooting star, you might have seen a meteor
on its way to Earth. Those that land here can be used to peek back
in time, into the far corners of outer space or at the earliest
building blocks of life. Scientists have conducted some of the most
detailed analyses yet on the organic material of two meteorites.


Facebook Twitter Pinterest LinkedIN Email
FULL STORY ==========================================================================
If you've ever seen a shooting star, you might have actually seen a
meteor on its way to Earth. Those that land here are called meteorites
and can be used to peek back in time, into the far corners of outer space
or at the earliest building blocks of life. Today, scientists report
some of the most detailed analyses yet of the organic material of two meteorites. They've identified tens of thousands of molecular "puzzle
pieces," including a larger amount of oxygen atoms than they had expected.


==========================================================================
The researchers will present their results at the spring meeting of the American Chemical Society (ACS).

Previously, the team led by Alan Marshall, Ph.D., investigated complex
mixtures of organic materials found on Earth, including petroleum. But
now, they are turning their attention toward the skies -- or the things
that have fallen from them. Their ultra-high resolution mass spectrometry
(MS) technique is starting to reveal new information about the universe
and could ultimately provide a window into the origin of life itself.

"This analysis gives us an idea of what's out there, what we're going to
run into as we move forward as a 'spacefaring' species," says Joseph Frye-Jones, a graduate student who is presenting the work at the
meeting. Both Marshall and Frye-Jones are at Florida State University
and the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory.

Thousands of meteorites fall to Earth every year, but only a rare few are "carbonaceous chondrites," the category of space rock that contains the
most organic, or carbon-containing, material. One of the most famous is
the "Murchison" meteorite, which fell in Australia in 1969 and has been
studied extensively since. A newer entry is the relatively unexplored
"Aguas Zarcas," which fell in Costa Rica in 2019, bursting through
back porches and even a doghouse as its pieces fell to the ground. By understanding the organic makeup of these meteorites, researchers can
obtain information about where and when the rocks formed, and what they
ran into on their journey through space.

To make sense of the complicated jumble of molecules on the meteorites,
the scientists turned to MS. This technique blasts a sample apart into
tiny particles, then basically reports the mass of each one, represented
as a peak.

By analyzing the collection of peaks, or the spectrum, scientists can
learn what was in the original sample. But in many cases, the resolution
of the spectrum is only good enough to confirm the presence of a compound
that was already presumed to be there, rather than providing information
about unknown components.

This is where Fourier-transform ion cyclotron resonance (FT-ICR)
MS comes in, which is also known as "ultra-high resolution" MS. It
can analyze incredibly complex mixtures with very high levels of
resolution and accuracy. It's especially well suited for analyzing
mixtures, like petroleum, or the complex organic material extracted
from a meteorite. "With this instrument, we really have the resolution
to look at everything in many kinds of samples," says Frye- Jones.

The researchers extracted the organic material from samples of both the Murchison and Aguas Zarcas meteorites, then analyzed it with ultra-high resolution MS. Rather than analyzing only one specific class of molecules
at a time, such as amino acids, they chose to look at all soluble organic material at once. This provided the team with more than 30,000 peaks for
each meteorite to analyze, and over 60% of them could be given a unique molecular formula.

Frye-Jones says these results represent the first analysis of this type
on the Aguas Zarcas meteorite, and the highest-resolution analysis on
the Murchison one. In fact, this team identified nearly twice as many
molecular formulas as previously reported for the older meteorite.

Once determined, the data were sorted into unique groups based on
various characteristics, such as whether they included oxygen or sulfur,
or whether they potentially contained a ring structure or double
bonds. They were surprised to find a large amount of oxygen content
among the compounds. "You don't think of oxygen-containing organics as
being a big part of meteorites," explained Marshall.

The researchers will next turn their attention to two far more precious samples: a few grams of lunar dust from the Apollo 12 and 14 missions of
1969 and 1971, respectively. These samples predate Marshall's invention
of FT-ICR MS in the early 1970s. Instrumentation has come a long way
in the decades since and is now perfectly poised to analyze these
powders. The team will soon compare their results from the meteorite
analyses to the data they obtain from the lunar samples, hoping to learn
more information about where the moon's surface came from. "Was it from meteorites? Solar radiation? We should be able to soon shed some light
on that," says Marshall.

The researchers acknowledge funding from the National Science Foundation Division of Chemistry and the State of Florida. They thank the Chicago
Field Museum Robert A Pritzker Center for Meteoritics and Polar Studies
and the Arizona State University Buseck Center of Meteorite Studies for
the meteorite samples.

* RELATED_TOPICS
o Space_&_Time
# Asteroids,_Comets_and_Meteors # Solar_Flare #
Space_Missions # NASA # Space_Exploration # Moon #
Sun # Solar_System
* RELATED_TERMS
o Meteor o Meteorite o Outer_space o Space_observatory
o Space_elevator o Spitzer_space_telescope o Venus o
Extraterrestrial_life

========================================================================== Story Source: Materials provided by American_Chemical_Society. Note:
Content may be edited for style and length.


==========================================================================


Link to news story: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/03/230327114908.htm

--- up 1 year, 4 weeks, 10 hours, 50 minutes
* Origin: -=> Castle Rock BBS <=- Now Husky HPT Powered! (1:317/3)