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Meteorite Crammed with 'Millions' of Organic Compounds..
Discovery News ^ | Feb 15th, 2010

Posted on 02/15/2010 8:30:53 PM PST by TaraP

A meteorite that hit the town of Murchison, Australia, hasn't quit giving up its secrets.

The Murchison meteorite is one of the most studied space rocks because many pieces were recovered after it was seen breaking up as it fell through the atmosphere in 1969. Approximately 100 kg of the carbonaceous chondrite was recovered.

Carbonaceous chondrites are extremely important to scientists as they were formed from material that existed in the solar system's planet-forming disk of gas and dust. They are, quite literally, time capsules holding onto a 4 billion year old record of the birth of our solar system.

In this case, the Murchison meteorite has given us another clue as to the abundance of organic chemicals that existed before the Earth had formed. In fact, this particular meteorite may have originated from material older than our sun.

"We are really excited. When I first studied it and saw the complexity I was so amazed," said Dr Phillipe Schmitt-Kopplin, of the Institute for Ecological Chemistry in Neuherberg, Germany.

"Meteorites are like some kind of fossil. When you try to understand them you are looking back in time."

This new research made use of high resolution spectroscopic tools to identify the various compounds inside. Although this meteorite has provided scientists with vast amounts of information about specific carbon-based organics before, this was the first non-targeted study. In other words, the researchers weren't tracking down just one type of chemical, they did a broad analysis for all the chemicals it might contain.

And what they found came as a shock, it appears that the primordial solar system probably had a higher chemical diversity than present-day Earth.

In this study, 14,000 specific compounds including 70 amino acids were identified. But this number appears to be the tip of the iceberg; the meteorite probably contains millions of different organic compounds. More detailed analysis will now be carried out.

But why is this important? To understand the diversity of organic chemicals that were floating around a primordial solar system will help us understand how life may have appeared on Earth. This particular chunk of carbonaceous chondrite drifted through the gas and dust of the early solar system, collecting all the basic organic chemistry from around that time, does that mean diverse organic chemistry is the "norm" for proto-planetary star systems?

These organic compounds are known to exist on comets, asteroids and other planetary bodies, so what makes Earth the hothouse of life when everywhere else seems to be lifeless?

If organic chemistry is ubiquitous, perhaps planning to "seed" young star systems with Earth-based life isn't such a good idea. The conditions for life may not be that rare after all.


TOPICS: Government; News/Current Events; Philosophy
KEYWORDS: australia; chondrite; meteorite; murchison; organic; scientism; space
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1 posted on 02/15/2010 8:30:53 PM PST by TaraP
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To: TaraP

This is interesting if confirmed.

But, just because you have a bunch of organic chemicals doesn’t mean that a planet covered with it would produce life.

You still need: RNA, DNA and cell protein structure to permit amino acid chains to link in a rather complex sequences.

No one has any idea how the “primordial soup” — if it existed on earth — might spring to life.


2 posted on 02/15/2010 8:42:20 PM PST by garjog (Used to be liberals were just people to disagree with. Now they are a threat to our existence.)
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To: TaraP; SunkenCiv; KevinDavis

The conditions for life may not be that rare after all.


3 posted on 02/15/2010 8:43:54 PM PST by GSP.FAN (These are the times that try men's souls.)
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To: TaraP

The earth is only ~8000 miles in diameter. The Milky Way alone is around 100,000 light years across, and is only one of ~3000 visible galaxies and an estimated 500 billion galaxies in the universe. It doesn’t seem surprising to me that there would be organic matter elsewhere in all of that. Incidentally, for those who say that they don’t believe there is a reason for all of this, and say they don’t believe in God, how can you truly believe that all of the vastness of the universe exists for no reason?


4 posted on 02/15/2010 8:45:29 PM PST by pieceofthepuzzle
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To: garjog
No one has any idea how the “primordial soup” — if it existed on earth — might spring to life.

I'll be happy to recommend a book to you that explains it in fairly simple terms.

5 posted on 02/15/2010 8:45:45 PM PST by PAR35
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To: TaraP

Well, when life has been found elsewhere, please ping us.


6 posted on 02/15/2010 8:47:16 PM PST by onedoug
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To: TaraP

I just wonder when one molecule decided that splitting into two parts was boring and stopped and then noticed that cute guy molecule over there ....


7 posted on 02/15/2010 9:01:12 PM PST by SkyDancer (If you don't read the newspaper you are uninformed, if you do read the newspaper you are misinformed)
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To: TaraP

Organic......contains carbon...


8 posted on 02/15/2010 9:01:35 PM PST by TASMANIANRED (Liberals are educated above their level of intelligence.. Thanks Sr. Angelica)
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To: PAR35

OK, please recommend a book or article on that. I am quite interested.

Seems to me that there are guesses (hardly feasible) about how biochemistry evolved, but no coherent theory that might permit experimental evidence.


9 posted on 02/15/2010 9:01:49 PM PST by garjog (Used to be liberals were just people to disagree with. Now they are a threat to our existence.)
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To: PAR35

Ha ha ha Comic book HA ha evolution is just like global warm and the easter bunny. It’s all a crock.


10 posted on 02/15/2010 9:02:45 PM PST by Rodm
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To: garjog; All
Here's what I want them to explain to me. The big bang theory says that all of the dust and gas that formed the universe condensed down into a very small area and then exploded and this formed the Universe.

I want to know what formed the dust and gas in the total emptiness of space. The material that formed the planets had to come from somewhere but no scientist covers that, they kind of skip over it as if we are to just except the fact that 10s of millions, or trillions or more, of tons of dust, gas and other debris was just floating around in space(which, BTW, seems endless)with no apparent beginning. so, if someone can tell me where that material came from, and do it convincingly, I would be grateful.

11 posted on 02/15/2010 9:04:27 PM PST by calex59
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To: SkyDancer

Ha. You sound like a blond cheerleader.


12 posted on 02/15/2010 9:16:27 PM PST by mamelukesabre (Si Vis Pacem Para Bellum (If you want peace prepare for war))
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To: calex59

Energy. Before matter, time, and space...there was pure energy.


13 posted on 02/15/2010 9:18:38 PM PST by mamelukesabre (Si Vis Pacem Para Bellum (If you want peace prepare for war))
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To: TaraP
In an infinite universe an infinite number of permutations and combnations of all things are possible.

It's just a matter of where and when.

Or is it?

14 posted on 02/15/2010 9:19:39 PM PST by R_Kangel (`.`)
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To: calex59
Well, actually I am reading a book on this. It is called God and the New Physics by Paul Davies. It is 25 years old, but explains a lot.

I don't think that anyone agrees that all matter and energy collapsed into a single spot. That is the steady state theory which I think has been shown to have some problems with the math.

It seems that the universe began as a pea sized singularity in which all matter, space and time was fused into one thing. As mind boggling as it may seem, there was no space around this pea sized ball because space and time only came into being as product of the explosion.

It just popped into existence. I guess that this kind of popping occurs on the sub atomic level all of the time.

Theists believe in a Creator who is outside of space and time and created the ball and caused it to explode. The big bang theory seems eerily like Geneses chapter one and the doctrine of Creation ex nilio (out of nothing).

However, as you might expect, there are physicists who try to come up with other explanations to deny what I think is the obvious answer (God did it). For them, the universe just popped into existence for no reason.

15 posted on 02/15/2010 9:22:39 PM PST by garjog (Used to be liberals were just people to disagree with. Now they are a threat to our existence.)
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To: mamelukesabre

I think that is what the Disclosure Project is by this Dr Steven Brewer that the Government is keeping the secret of Alternative Energy by Alien life

The Disclosure Project is a nonprofit research project working to fully disclose the facts about UFOs, extraterrestrial intelligence, and classified advanced energy and propulsion systems. We have over 400 government, military, and intelligence community witnesses testifying to their direct, personal, first hand experience with UFOs, ETs, ET technology, and the cover-up that keeps this information secret.


16 posted on 02/15/2010 9:23:29 PM PST by TaraP (*GOD* made love so strong, so it would carry you all the way home.....)
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To: mamelukesabre

4.0 Example List of Technologies ……………………………………. 8
4.1 Solid-State Electromagnetic Free Energy Generator ……. 9
4.2 Rotary Electromagnetic Free Energy Generator ………… 9
4.3 Oscillated Power or Energy Resonance …………………… 9
4.4 Electromagnetic Lifter Technology ……………………….. 9
4.5 Water-Enhanced Combustion Technology ……………….. 10
4.6 Electrostatic Combustion Technology ……………………. 10
4.7 Electromagnetic Free Energy Motor ……………………... 10
4.8 Plasma Arc Reactor ………………………………………… 10
4.9 Stubblefield Earth Battery and Communication Tech. ...... 11
4.10 Precursor Engineering Physics ……………………………. 11
4.11 Kowsky-Frost Antigravity Technology …………………… 11
4.12 Other Potential Energy Producing Technologies ………... 11

http://www.disclosureproject.org/PDF-Documents/Energy.pdf


17 posted on 02/15/2010 9:27:11 PM PST by TaraP (*GOD* made love so strong, so it would carry you all the way home.....)
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To: pieceofthepuzzle

I agree. No way would God create all this and only produce life here.


18 posted on 02/15/2010 9:27:44 PM PST by CalvaryJohn (What is keeping that damned asteroid?)
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To: mamelukesabre
So you say, prove it and tell me where the energy came from. You can't have energy without it costing something. You have to generate energy somehow. It didn't just appear, and even if somehow pure energy appeared suddenly without warning it could not produce something from nothing. No one explains where the original matter came from because they can't. It's like the primordial soup crap. Life supposedly just sprang into being but they can't reproduce it, they can't form life in the lab using the conditions that supposedly existed then.

So, what do they do? They now are speculating(and have been for a while)that life came here on a meteor, asteroid, comet or whatever as if that explains it, totally ignoring the question of HOW that life came into being before it came here on some celestial body.

Many things remain unexplained, but instead of owning up to that and admitting it the scientists make up sh**, just like the global warming crowd.

People are saying the scientists that embraced global warming have disgraced science, but science has always had its liars and fabricators, making stuff up to prove a theory. Pure energy my a**.

19 posted on 02/15/2010 10:08:34 PM PST by calex59
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To: garjog

You didn’t explain what I asked. Where did the material that exploded come from, and if there was no space what was there? You can’t have an explosion that creates matter, you can only scatter it with the explosion, and sometimes you turn matter into energy when it explodes, such as in a nuclear explosion. I would imagine the “big bang”(which I don’t subscribe to, BTW)would have many orders of magnitude above any nuke explosion we have ever witnessed. Nope, your little rambling comment explains nothing. Nothing I have ever read answers the question: Where did the original matter come from?


20 posted on 02/15/2010 10:13:21 PM PST by calex59
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