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

[MARK BOSTICK]

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

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PDF copy of this article, and most I post, is available upon e-mail request.