An object that fell to Earth more than 136 years ago has revealed new clues about the origin of meteorites in space and new information about how life may have started on early Earth. The new study by researchers at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego, and their colleagues shows that the Orgueil meteorite, which fell in France in 1864, may be the first meteorite traced to a comet, rather than from an asteroid, the source widely believed to produce meteorites. The contents within Orgueil, the study says, may have been just the type of fundamental ingredients necessary to help generate life on Earth. Scientists have generally believed that a wide variety of amino acids were required for the origin of life on Earth. Although the Orgueil meteorite, named after the French town near where it fell in 1864, had been analyzed decades ago, Bada and his colleagues conducted a new study using sophisticated techniques and instruments aimed at detecting trace levels of amino acids.
Amino acids are the fundamental components of proteins and are synthesized in living cells.
After obtaining a pristine piece of the interior portion of Orgueil, the researchers found that it contained a relatively simple mixture of amino acids, consisting primarily of glycine and beta-alanine. They also analyzed the sample's carbon isotope concentration and found that the amino acids were not derived from earthly contamination. We found that the amino acids in Orgueil are abiotic. We think these amino acids were synthesized in space. The research team broke the meteorites down into two classes.