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Space

Bus-sized Meteorite Gives Clues To Earth's Origin 87

Posted by timothy from the was-it-yellow-with-windows? dept.
This unnamed correspondent was one of the first to note this article: "Orginally posted here, scientists are looking at fragments of a meteorite that came to Earth in the Canadian Yukon. It's carbon-rich, and may contain clues about early life." The meteorite made a fiery appearance over the Yukon in January, and the fragments which are so interesting were recovered by a Canadian named Jim Brock, who gave them up for study by scientists from the University of Western Ontario. Why so exciting? As the article explains, "Preliminary tests of the pristine material find that it is loaded with organic molecules of the type that some experts have suggested could have been the original raw materials for the formation of life on Earth."
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Bus-sized Meteroite Gives Clues To Earth's Origin More

Bus-sized Meteroite Gives Clues To Earth's Origin

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  • Re:UWO (Score:1)

    by lars ( 72 )
    Your paltry tuition fees only cover a fraction of your own education. They most certainly do not pay for any research that gets done!
  • You do not have the Cosmic Zen. You live in the Now. You should seek Enlightenment into the nature of Time and the Smallness of your Being.
  • Carbon Monoxide, Diamond, Graphite, and any Carbon halide not containing Hydrogen (i.e., Carbon Tetrachloride) are inorganic too.
  • At the end of the day we don't need to invoke mysterious agents from the stars to explain the start of life on Earth. We already have both religious and scientific explanaitions that satisfy all rational criteria for the origin of life.

    Yes, but most people aren't rational. If somebody thinks of it and convinces somebody else that it could have happened, then it is upon everybody to try and prove otherwise. That's how this sort of thing happens.

    Makes me think of a line from The Rainbow Connection "Somebody thought of that, and someone believed it. Look at what it's done so far." The whole idea of life from space is the same sort of thing. And it doesn't matter whether or not it is right or wrong. People believe it, and that is simply the way it is.
  • Moderate this up. Flatpack is certainly a "troll," looking back on his previous posts. Go ahead, click on Flatpack's info, he posts to get people to react.
  • It doesn't matter where life originated from!
  • Brook's careful handling will allow scientists to study matter that is virtually unchanged since the solar system formed some 4.6 billion years ago, said Peter G. Brown of the University of Western Ontario in London, Ontario, Canada.

    How can we possibly know that? Are these scientists so conceited that they don't believe rock can be shifted / altered / metamorposed /melted and reformed without them? These are meteorite fragments. They burned during entry. Isn't carbon supposed to be present in the majority of cases of burned material?

  • Just watch out for the Blob!
  • The reason is that, supposedly, life started in the ocean, which is opaque to UV life. This is one of the strongest reasons many scientists think that oceans are necessary for life, which is why they're so keen on Europa.
  • No, we're just all fallen from a bus [sized meteor] from outer space :) (Spaceballs refference again ?:)

    --
  • At the end of the day we don't need to invoke mysterious agents from the stars to explain the start of life on Earth. We already have both religious and scientific explanaitions that satisfy all rational criteria for the origin of life.

    No rational criteria exists to justify any religious explanations. How is it rational to think "some super high power being said 'be' and created everything"? Sounds pretty shaky to me. Sounds like... something primitive man thought up to explain things he couldn't understand.

  • >Each of the evil mentioned meteors (asteroids,
    >comets on collision paths, etc) were well under
    >220 ton chunk that hit the atmosphere. (granted,
    >it burned down as it entered the atmosphere)

    Ah, no. They weren't. Asteroids the size of the one that hit 65 million years ago mass billions of tons. They're the size of mountains, or larger. They don't burn up in the atmosphere (since it only takes them a few seconds to pass through the atmosphere). Hell, the big ones would go right through the ocean and well into the ocean floor.

    Really.

  • where's all the 'in-between' beings if everything evolved from something else?

    *COUGH* fossil record *COUGH*

  • I found this comment particularly interesting, because last night I found myself discussing Arthur C. Clarke's Rendezvous With Rama with a couple of friends. The book describes two methods of surviving meteorite, uh, attacks: anti-meteor defense systems and colonalization. I would imagine that, technologically, we're closer to having the former, but colonization is the far more important problem, since that will ultimately affect our survival as a species.

    On the other hand, the universe itself will become uninhabitable in, what, a few dozen billion years? Help me out, cosmologists.

  • Doh. I didn't read Verteiron's comment [slashdot.org] ; before posting this. My bad. -1, Redundant.

  • For the same reason that GNU Emacs and XEmacs today co-exist with no half-GNU half-X (jeez, this analogy sucks) Emacs roaming the land... both evolved from a common ancestor which is now extinct. Not every species gets to survive.

  • Maybe Robin Williams will do his flaming fireball impression at the next intergalactic Oscars ...
  • No, a diamond is not organic. It is the presence of the carbon-hydrogen bond that identifies a molecule as organic.
  • Moderate this up. Flatpack is certainly a "troll," looking back on his previous posts. Go ahead, click on Flatpack's info, he posts to get people to react.

    thanks for the support! :) unfortunately, my long term points will be forever lost to the karma cap ...

  • Amen Brother!
  • Of course, if you do read the last two paragraphs of the article, they mention that the "twisting" was the wake that the meteor left through the atmosphere, and the mangetic field trapped in the wake gererated very long radio waves. It did not mention sparking, just that the radio waves interacting with almost anything on the ground would produce sound.

    I'm not up on my physics, so would someone who is care to explain this so called "electrophonic" effect?

  • Send it to Mars with the green house gasses and poof. Instant Canada!

    My inferiority complex isn't as good as yours!!
  • How would UV destroy organic matter inside a meteorite but not on the surface of the earth?

    One would also think that any life that could survive the unrestrained UV barrage it would experience in space could also do so once blanketed by the atmosphere of earth.

  • Hey Mike, wake up man. The guys from AP are here to take your picture with those pieces of the space rock.

  • It would only be once they got close to a star that they would be killed off by lethal radiation.

    You answered your own question. 'Close to a star', in terms of the amount of radiation a celestial body receives isn't exactly withing spitting distance.

  • I wish I could read the article, but the version of Netscape that they give us here at work (4.51) closes when I click on the link... *sigh*

    Jeff

    Jeff

  • I wonder if anyone views this as paranoid as I do.A gigantic meteroite wiped out the dinosaurs and unless we develop a means to detect and deflect such objects,the human race might be next on the cosmic turkey shoot.A bus-sized meteor releases the energy of a small nuclear warhead.What would have happened if it came down over the Soviet Union,say in Oct.1963??
  • The only method that I am aware of that forms diamonds in a "flash" process, i.e., not requiring tons of pressure per square inch for a LONG time rather than in an ex/implosion or shockwave, requires vaporizing carbon and condensing it on a "seed" diamond crystal that the rest of the diamond forms around. Not likely to be the method that formed these diamonds inside solid rock, but probably not impossible. On the other hand I could hardly be familiar wih all of the processes that might operate on something that has become a meteorite in the course of it's lifetime since I'm not an astrogeologist (if there is such a field). I'm inclined to believe that this was a chunk of something much larger where mundane processes formed the diamonds and then the larger body was broken up. Not very exciting though.
  • I hadn't heard that it had diamonds in it. My understanding is that it is a type of meteorite that is very soft and quickly breaks down if not protected from rain, etc.

    One of the reasons this is so significant is because only a few of this type have been found in the past.

  • a pizza hut advirtisement on it?
  • No just possible - likely

    You're absolutely right. Point well taken.

  • Here's a link [slashdot.org] to an earlier /. post about a NASA test, which concluded that at least for a short time bacteria can survive in space. Plus, it is possible that such a meteorite would hit water and be protected from UV radiation.

    At the end of the day we don't need to invoke mysterious agents from the stars to explain the start of life on Earth. We already have both religious and scientific explanaitions that satisfy all rational criteria for the origin of life.

    Those explanations are not fact, they are theories. You choose the one that is more consistent with experiment and you go with it until a better refined theory is developed. You don't stop just because you get a warm-fuzzy about your results.

  • Bah! Everyone knows the only useful research going on in Ontario is being done at UW and UT, not UWO. Unless of course you consider research into the per-capita number of spoiled rich kids driving jaguars or porsches to be culturally significant. Or for that matter research into how many drinks I have to buy a UWO student's girlfriend before I can get her to cheat on him. (Current results are running around 1.2) ;-P
  • Of course we should be open to non organic compounds life. But is your definition of life correct? Why should the system replicate? Imagine something that lives forever but doesn't replicate? How about this one: "Life is creating order in disorder"?
  • What when someone patents that material...
    Does he own all life on earth?
    ...whua...why do I feel so cold?
  • No no no... the actual meteorite impact did not kill the dinosaurs... First, the meteorite that hit the ground would be going at a VERY fast speed, right? Therefore we can conclude that it basically drilled a hole in the atmosphere, which created a vacuum. All the dinosaurs were sucked into space. :)
  • Perhaps the Pink Panther hid them there...

  • Yes, but most people aren't rational. If somebody thinks of it and convinces somebody else that it could have happened, then it is upon everybody to try and prove otherwise. That's how this sort of thing happens.

    That's not very scientific is it? "People believe it, and that is simply the way it is." is hardly the kind of attitude that is going to stop the masses from turning into a superstitious tabble more interested in astrology than astronomy, when they can tell the difference.

    Oh wait, I've just described America.

  • How would UV destroy organic matter inside a meteorite but not on the surface of the earth?

    As the atmosphere settled down and thickened the Earth became more and more resistant to ultraviolet radiation, thus allowing organic matter to form.

    One would also think that any life that could survive the unrestrained UV barrage it would experience in space could also do so once blanketed by the atmosphere of earth.

    And which UV rays would these be? Since UV comes from the sun, there aren't any out in space, or at least none strong enough to harm organisms. It would only be once they got close to a star that they would be killed off by lethal radiation.

  • You answered your own question. 'Close to a star', in terms of the amount of radiation a celestial body receives isn't exactly withing spitting distance.

    But the energy of the radiation falls off as the square of the radius, which means that after a fairly short distance, celestially speaking of course, the radiation is too ineffective to acheive much. And interstellar distances are vast compared to the distance between the Earth and the Sun.

    In addition, the radiation is spread out over a larger and larger volume as it travels away from it's origin, making it even more unlikely that any space-going target will be affected.

  • I'm on my way!

    Jeeves, get Nightboat ready, we're off to the gazza strip.

    No, not that gazza strip, the other one.

    After all, what's the king of the world for?

  • HEY... what have those beady-eyed fretful shylock pseudo-dredlocked penny-pinching smelly bastards ever done to you?

    Leave them alone.

  • IIRC, the thing has lots of little diamonds scattered throughout it. I wonder what cataclysmic event caused their formation, perhaps a planet exploded, perhaps the meteorite was too close to a start going nova, or maybe they formed as it slammed into the atmostphere?

    Anyone know?
  • Just add water, ohh wait a minute, they just told us that there probably wasn't water on mars.

    bang goes that theory
    --
  • Actually, UV radiation is harmful to most organic molecules since it is of sufficient energy to break many of the bonds which hold the molecules together. That is also why it is harmful to us (in the most fundamental sense).

    Thanks for your reply. You can probably tell I wasn't all that attentive during my chemistry classes ;-)

    Even so, I would have thought the interior of a meteorite would be a pretty UV-free place, allowing organic compounds to continue to exist, just as beneath the Earth's surface when the solar system was new.

    It'd be nice to know exactly what organic compounds they found in this lump of rock. Sadly, the article in the popular press (which is of course well known for its accuracy and reliablity, yeah right!) doesn't say.

  • we all know that God created Earth and a man. End of story.
  • <humor>

    Maybe the UV got refracted through all those diamonds.

    </humor>

  • I think you missed the idea that the organic things were INSIDE the rock. Hence, no UV rays would have hit them. Furthermore, who knows how long such things might have lived after landing. Also, UV rays are all over space with no protection from any atmosphere and yet, somehow, this meteorite hit earth with traces of organic material. Obviously, if these organic compounds can survive in space, they can survive on the surface of this planet whether or not it had an atmosphere like we have today.
  • Woo-hoo! That's my university [www.uwo.ca]. Glad to know my tuition is at least paying for something educational.
  • Yep, we already have an answer why bother thinking any more. I don't have any brief to defend Fred Hoyle but gratuitously attacking his ideas because someone proposes material evidence which coincides with his theory seems somewhat of a knee jerk reaction. I'm completely open minded about whether there was one or more than one origin of life on this particular planet, apart from divine intervention.
  • Actually...
    Diamonds do not contain solely carbon atoms. The main lattice structure is solely carbon atoms, but sometimes other atoms get in and get trapped inside the lattice. This is where we get colored diamonds from. For instance, if you got Sulfur in the diamond, it would look yellow. Chlorine might make it turn blue-green.
  • You could defines life as a process which consumes energy at the expense of entropy in order to replicate and self maintain. As long as the system replicates, what does it matter if it'a made of "organic" compounds? Isn't it still life?
  • Sounds pretty shaky to me.

    What sounds even more shaky is explaining that the earth was created by masses of goo colliding together to form life and by millions of years, here we are... where's all the 'in-between' beings if everything evolved from something else?

  • Even IF there are a few fossils that may look like a transitional being, why do say monkeys and humans co-exist with no half monkeys/half humans around?
  • 70% of those meteorites would have fallen into the ocean, and thus protected from UV.
  • uh yeah, *you* go freeze your ass off on Mars. I'll watch as the mushroom cloud from the meteor impact on Mars vaporizes our first colony. It could happen either way.

  • Considering the theory that the earth was created in a mostly solid state from matter orbiting the sun, and considering that this meteorite was in a solar orbit before the Earth caught it, this may support the Deep-Earth Gas theory that hydrocarbons emanate from deep in the Earth, where they abound. Which would in turn support Thomas Gold's Deep Hot Biosphere theory that says that life formed deeper in the earth and only reached the surface after a slow ascent.

    To answer an earlier question about where the diamond fragments came from, perhaps the force of the sudden impact on the earth's surface caused the compounds in the meteorite to crystalize and form the diamond shards? Just a thought.

  • What? PCI? ISA? 1937 Phutney Creech?

    (geek humor. laugh now.)

    --

  • Isn't carbon supposed to be present in the majority of cases of burned material?

    Only if the material burned contained carbon to begin with. Carbon doesn't just magically appear when you burn something.

  • No - they're educated: consider it for yourself.

    (Snotty comments deserve snotty replies)

    This was a large object, much of it's internal material was unaffected by passage through the atmosphere. Sure the leading edge(s) were vaporized, and likely the following meter or so was pretty well cooked but the inside probably never warmed up significantly. Indeed it's this thermal stress that probably caused it to shatter low in the atmosphere.

    The pieces came to rest on the surface of a frozen lake. That's a pretty pristine area. That they didn't melt through directly indicates they were fairly cool when they landed. Thus we have relatively cool objects that aren't heavily contaminated, particularly on their insides where the local bugs wouldn't have had much opportunity to penetrate.

    As to their being unaffected during their time in space - likely they did go through changes, changes that leave evidence.

    Finally, the burned organic material you're familiar with leaves carbon residues because it's organic in nature, which hereabouts is carbon-based. Burn a bit of sulphur though & you don't magically get carbon, you get sulphur & oxygen decomposition products. Burning generally means "oxidizing" which implies you'll get whatever + oxygen products, not whatever + oxygen = carbon.

    Burning a random hunk of metal or stone such as most meteoric material is made of won't magically get you carbon either. It has to come from someplace & this object is interesting because it's got lots of carbon & it's in long-chain forms (not the sort of short-chains one gets from burning anyhow.)

    Personally I suggest you signing up at your local Community College, perhaps for a basic course in Geology & another basic course in Chemistry. While you're at it you might consider Rhetoric (so you'll understand how to construct an argument) and Social Skills so you won't come off such an ass.

  • You're forgetting that rock is opaque. UV would only sterilise the surface; and no-one's seriously suggesting that viable microbes would survive on the surface of meteroids anyway (when in space, vast differences is temparature and radiation; on reentry, it's washed in plasma; when on the ground, it'll be exposed to the probably highly acidic rain).

    There are plenty of bacteria that live *in* rock. You can split stones open and see a coloured layer a few centimetres below the surface; that's them. These would survive meteoric reentry quite handily, and they're protected from all UV.

  • Any organic matter entering Earth's atmosphere at that time would have been destroyed by the UV radiation, and meteorites would have been sterile when they hit the Earth.

    Well, if that's true, then how come the UV radiation didn't kill the first life in Earth? It obviously didn't, because I'm sitting here typing this right now, and I think I'm alive...

    Let's say for argument's sake that it was only in the upper atmosphere that the UV radiation was deadly. What if the microbes/virii/seeds/small furry creatures were embedded inside the meteorite? That would shield them from the UV, ne?

    Personally, I'm waiting 'til I see the next season of The X Files before coming to any conclusions... ;-)


    D.
    ..is for "Did black oil leak out of the meteorite when they started cutting it up?"

  • "detect and deflect such objects"

    Or get our eggs out of the basket.

  • A few years ago, up until a few months ago, we were bombarded with Asteroid movies, and Discovery Channel Specials warning us of meteoric impacts to
    End Interesting Life In Existance (E I LIE)(TM).

    There were thinktank discussions about developing contingency plans and even ,IIRC, Congressional discussions of the same.

    Each of the evil mentioned meteors (asteroids, comets on collision paths, etc) were well under the 220 ton chunk that hit the atmosphere. (granted, it burned down as it entered the atmosphere)

    And we're still alive. Doesn't this at least *partially* discredit the meteor-that-ended-the -thunderlizard theory?

    Could it be that Life on Earth is more resilient than the paranoid expect?

  • As far as I know, yes. The only carbon-containing molecule that is not considered organic is carbon dioxide.
  • We already have both religious and scientific explanaitions that satisfy all rational criteria for the origin of life.

    No we don't. We still don't know where Trolls come from... do we, Troll?

  • An event [ufobc.org] like this happened in 1998 too. Whatever beings are launching these things need to figure out that Redmond is further south.
  • This moderation is unfair.

    flatpack's post is obviously a Troll. MattMann was simply pointing it out. Why did he get modded down?

  • Life on Earth came about because of shards from Alderaan when the Empire destroyed it, hurtling though space. It just took a damn long time to get here, that's all! ;P

  • If UV radiation is so detrimental to organic matter (not life) how did it survive it's trek through space with 0 protection from the suns rays for millions of years to land on earth.

    Now I agree that there was probably no life on earth during the time of little atmospheric protection, but no organic matter surviving is a crock

  • recovered by a Canadian named Jim Brock

    The guy's name is Jim Brook.

    Incidentally, do diamonds qualify as organic molecules - they contain (ok, exclusively) carbon atoms.

  • The CNN article is a bit off. According to NPR news, the 'organic material' mentioned was supposed to be carbon and water. The concept was that a large asteroid collision several billions of years ago vaporized all the water and ignited most of the carbon in the newborn Earth, and these materials were gradually restocked over time by small carbon based asteroids which contained water, such as the one mentioned. There is no mention of bacteria or any of that rot, but carbon and water are still a key part of the 'building blocks of life'.

    It was just on this morning, so the audio stream won't pop up for another few days, but you can check Th e Morning Edition [npr.org] site in a day or two to listen to the story.

  • Cool, we should see if it's alive and then try to communicate with it...

    H*rus [zwienenberg.com]



    Mark [zwienenberg.com]

  • Re:Extra-terrestrial origin? I think not (Score:3)

    by The Dodger ( 10689 ) on Friday October 13, 2000 @02:55AM (#709210) Homepage

    it is possible that such a meteorite would hit water

    No just possible - likely. The majority of the Earth's surface is water (hell, even this thing would have landed in water if it hadn't been frozen) and ISTR that the ratio of water:land has been higher at times in the past.

    D.

  • EMP, too (Score:3)

    by SEWilco ( 27983 ) on Friday October 13, 2000 @03:32AM (#709211) Journal
    Notice the last two paragraphs of the BBC story [bbc.co.uk] describe an electromagnetic pulse effect. People heard sounds as the thing went past, many kilometers away. Apparently an electromagnetic effect was causing twisting or sparking of objects, causing assorted small sounds.

    Did anyone check if Magneto is still in his cage?

  • What they really mean (Score:3)

    by b0z ( 191086 ) on Friday October 13, 2000 @02:30AM (#709212) Homepage Journal
    "Preliminary tests of the pristine material find that it is loaded with organic molecules of the type that some experts have suggested could have been the original raw materials for the formation of life on Earth."
    Original materials for life in The Rock? Oh no! We're all descended from a professional wrestler! Evolution is true! You smell what The Rock is cookin'?

  • Re:Organic matter (Score:3)

    by Mad Hughagi ( 193374 ) on Friday October 13, 2000 @04:27AM (#709213) Homepage Journal
    Someone earlier talked about UV light destroying organic matter. It might be harmful to humans - but organic matter itself?

    Actually, UV radiation is harmful to most organic molecules since it is of sufficient energy to break many of the bonds which hold the molecules together. That is also why it is harmful to us (in the most fundamental sense).

    Astronomers have found organic molecules in space (spectroscopic methods), and when they do they only find them in situations where they are shielded from higher energy electromagnetic radiation. Things like the insides of dust clouds make for good organic incubators since the outside layers absorb most of the radiation emitted from nearby stars. Mind you, they never really find anything too complex (mostly just basic organic molecules) but it does give some insight into how chemistry works on the interstellar scale.

  • Tagish Lake website (Score:3)

    by Weryk ( 208035 ) on Friday October 13, 2000 @06:42AM (#709214)
    Well, I actually work for the research group at UWO that was in charge of this. Here's the website. [astro.uwo.ca]

  • Extra-terrestrial origin? I think not (Score:3)

    by flatpack ( 212454 ) on Friday October 13, 2000 @02:36AM (#709215)

    The type of reasoning employed by such otherwise respected "scientists" such as Fred Hoyle in proposing that the origin of life was not on the Earth, but was instead in outer space, is fundamentally flawed and should not be taken seriously.

    What they always seem to forget is that in those days the Earth's atmosphere was a lot different than it was today, and that the ozone layer did not exist. Hence, the Earth's surface and "atmosphere", such as it was, was a place where dangerous UV radiation had free range, and UV radiation at these levels is inimical to the presence of organic matter.

    Any organic matter entering Earth's atmosphere at that time would have been destroyed by the UV radiation, and meteorites would have been sterile when they hit the Earth. I've yet to see a single theory that takes this into account, and I think that an extra-terrestrial genesis is just another piece of pseudo-science that will become a note in scientific history books in years to come.

    At the end of the day we don't need to invoke mysterious agents from the stars to explain the start of life on Earth. We already have both religious and scientific explanaitions that satisfy all rational criteria for the origin of life.

  • I think you misread the article... (Score:3)

    by dmatos ( 232892 ) on Friday October 13, 2000 @03:47AM (#709216)
    It claims that the building blocks for the formation of life may have come from meteors, not life itself. This means that the carbon, hydrocarbons, and possibly even more complex compounds like amino acids came from outer space. Then, here on earth they spontaneously formed into whatever happened to be the first form of life.

    I don't see why this should surprise anyone. The earth itself was formed by millions of meteors, asteroids, and specks of space dust coalescing into a big ball. If you really think about it, everything on the earth is made of atoms and molecules that, way way back, came from space.

  • Re:Extra-terrestrial origin? I think not (Score:4)

    by The Dodger ( 10689 ) on Friday October 13, 2000 @05:33AM (#709217) Homepage

    Um, sorry... forzen water is STILL water.

    If I knew what "forzen" is I would probably agree with you! ;-)

    My point was that, if the lake hadn't been 'forzen' over, the bits of the meteorite would have landed in liquid water and, given it's consistency (i.e. that of "dried mud"), would probably have sort of dissolved or been otherwise eroded.

    This has two implications -

    1. The pieces would probably never have been recovered and, even if they had, having been dunked in water would mean that they would have yielded less information (remember that one of the unusual things about these fragments was that they were well-preserved).

    2. As another /.er pointed out, life began in the oceans. The fact that the oceans cover the majority of the planet's surface.. (how can I put this) does not disprove the theory that life arrived on Earth courtesy of a meteorite. To me, it's not hugely implausible that a meteorite carrying life splashed down in an ocean and dissolved/eroded, releasing whatever it was carrying into the ocean.

    Of course, how the organism found itself floating through space on a collision course with the third planet, in the first place hasn't been fully explained yet (at least, not to me). The only options I can think of are cataclysmic events which would lead to the break-up of a planet/moon/asteroid which already had life, resulting in asteroids/meteors carrying bits of that planet's biomass.

    The problem with that theory is that I would imagine that most cataclysmic events of that type wouldn't leave much alive.

    Of course, NASA's discoveries relating to the hardiness of bacteria, etc. have interesting implications.

    But, at the end of the day, life had to begin somewhere. Whether it was here on Earth or elsewhere in the cosmos, there was, presumably, still a moment where what was inorganic became organic...

    But it would be really interesting to find another planet with life, just to see how it evolved in a different environment.


    D.
    ..is for "Don't sneeze on the planets, dear..."

  • Don't worry about where life has started.. (OT) (Score:4)

    by Talonius ( 97106 ) on Friday October 13, 2000 @02:38AM (#709218)

    Worry about where it's going. :-) (I can see this happening in ten or twenty years btw..)

    http://www.malepregnancy.com [malepregnancy.com]

    http://www.genochoice.com [genochoice.com]

    (I thought the links were pretty funny. :-))

    -- Talonius

  • Organic matter (Score:4)

    by Alioth ( 221270 ) <no@spam> on Friday October 13, 2000 @03:42AM (#709219) Journal
    It seems like nobody here really has cottoned onto what organic matter is. Organic matter != living matter.

    Someone earlier talked about UV light destroying organic matter. It might be harmful to humans - but organic matter itself?

    Organic matter basically means the chains-of-carbon-atom type molecules. It doesn't mean living matter. Gasoline is an organic compound. So is methane, ethane, butane, propane, heptane etc. Ethanol (C2H5OOH, common alcohol) is organic matter. Methylethylketone (MEK, commonly used as solvent, cleaning agent or paint thinner) is organic matter. None of these things alone are living or about to spring to life. In fact, gasoline is very toxic, but it's still an organic compound. To briefly summarize, organic chemistry centres around carbon-based chemistry: not necessarily the chemistry of life.

    It is the long carbon chain molecules that make life possible. What I expect they have found in this meteorite are long-chain carbon molecules - not microbes or anything like that. Even so, this is still a very interesting find.

  • Re:Meteorite (Score:4)

    by Verteiron ( 224042 ) on Friday October 13, 2000 @03:26AM (#709220) Homepage
    What would have happened if the Tunguska event of 1908 had happened 2 hours later? Boom, in the middle of Moscow... Here's some statistics; whether they comfort you or scare you is all in how you look at things. There are probably about 1000 >1km asteroids that cross earth orbit. One of those hits us, on extreme average, every 300,000 years or so. You might be interested in reading this [nasa.gov]. Also, this place [seds.org] has a lot of good info and links about meteorites, impacts, and the like.

    But you've gotta think... between airbursts and small impacts, we're bombarded pretty heavily already. All precautions allowed by our level of technology are being taken; if a meteorite hit us tomorrow, there's not a single damn thing we can do about it. Worrying about it is as pointless (even less so) than worrying about tripping over a sidewalk crack and breaking your neck. If you spend every spare minute thinking about it, yes, you'll be a paranoid wreck. So don't.

    Of course, some people (Arthur C. Clarke among others) think it'll take a major impact in a populated area to unite the planet... The problem is it could happen tomorrow.. or 10,000 years from now. We just don't know. (of course, because I said that, and because today's Friday the 13th, I'll probably get hit by one on the way to work)

  • Oh My God! (Score:5)

    by Ben Miller ( 37627 ) on Friday October 13, 2000 @02:26AM (#709221)
    You mean we're all CANADIAN??!!

    ;)

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