[meteorite-list] NPA 10-13-2000 Meteorite May Hold Clues...(Tagish Lake)

From: MARK BOSTICK <thebigcollector_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Wed Jan 5 12:17:14 2005
Message-ID: <BAY4-F70D6218740EF41F3F30C6B3920_at_phx.gbl>

Paper: The Chronicle-Telegram
City: Elyria, Ohio
Date: Friday, October 13, 2000
Page: A3

Meteorite may hold clues to origin of life

     WASHINGTON (AP) - In a search for new clues about the origin of life,
researchers would-wide are analyzing bits of a bus-sized meteorite that
blazed to Earth last January in a spectacular fireball, giving science the
most pristine primordial matter ever recorded.
     The meteorite, estimated to weigh about 220 tons when it smashed into
the atmosphere, shattered before it hit the ground and sprayed bits of space
rock over a frozen lake in Canada's British Columbia.
     More than 70 eyewitness saw the fireball and a week later Canadian Jim
Brook, while driving on the ice of Tagish Lake spotted bits of the
meteorite. Working in minus 20 degree temperatures, Brook collected about
two pounds of the black, charcoal-like fragments in a plastic bag and stored
them in a freezer.
     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.
     "These are the most pristine meteorite specimens on the planet right
now," said Brown, who is the first author of a study appearing Friday in the
journal Science.
    Later expeditions gathered some 410 additional fragments, but by then
the material had been sitting in the open for weeks, was most likely
contaminated and was beginning to erode. The material is about the
consistency of dried mud, and rain can cause it to crumble and wash away.
     Preliminary tests of the pristine material found 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.
    They believe the object came from the asteroid belt between the orbits
of Mars and Jupiter. Brown said the object was probably jolted off a larger
body and could have spent million of years in orbit before being captured by
Earth's gravity.

(end)

Article has an illustration of "Suspected orbit of meteorite" and a diagram
showing the "Area of impact".


Clear Skies,
Mark Bostick
Wichita, Kansas
http://www.meteoritearticles.com
http://www.kansasmeteoritesociety.com
http://www.imca.cc

http://stores.ebay.com/meteoritearticles

PDF copy of this article, and most I post, is available upon e-mail request.
Received on Wed 05 Jan 2005 12:16:39 PM PST