Life started out easy, because the organic compounds that came from space were more complex than we thought until now

This is what Prof. Sandra Fitzerlo of Arizona State University says in response to a question from the science website following the publication of the analysis of the composition of a meteorite that fell last year in California, which the scientists were able to locate close to its fall before it was contaminated with earthly substances

A space rock that disintegrated over the California sky last year and some of its fragments reached the ground has provided scientists with a rare ability to examine the complex chemistry that may have existed in the early days of the solar system. Meteorites similar to this might have provided the raw materials that assembled together and created the molecules required for life.
Scientists examined one of the fragments that fell near the town of Sutter's Mill (Sutter's Mill) after it broke up over Northern California on April 22, 2012. When the researchers led by chemist Sandra Fitzgerald from Arizona State University dissolved some of the fragments using acid - many organic substances containing sulfur and oxygen were left behind. Some of these materials have not yet been identified in meteorites. The detailed findings were published in the September 9, 2013 issue of the journal PNAS.

"Meteorite analysis never ceases to surprise and intrigue us" explains Prof. Fitzerlo. "It is a meteorite that underwent a chemical change due to the heat and which seems the least likely to contain biological substances - in particular not those that contain the pre-biological chemistry, but to our surprise the meteorite contained complex organic substances such as polyethers.

The science website: What did you find in the meteorite that surprised you?
Prof. Fitzerlo: "In the meteorite we found a wide variety of metals, silicates, salt oxides, water ice, ice made of carbon monoxide and dry ice (carbon dioxide) and of course - organic acids. The mystery of the origin of life is still far from being solved. We do not know how to assess whether and how organic materials that arrived from outside the earth contributed to the development of life here. However, large amounts of organic materials certainly arrived during the later great bombardment of comets and meteorites on the Earth some time after its formation and cooling."
How did such sensitive materials manage to reach the ground and survive the friction in the atmosphere?
Prof. Fitzgerald: "The meteorite from Chatters Mill was almost certainly heated during its passage through the atmosphere and does not contain most of the soluble substances that we have seen in other falls. This is why the finding of compounds containing soluble kerogen type material was interesting. Although the meteorite broke up into several pieces, the intense heat resulting from its friction with the atmosphere created a fusion film that protected the interior of the rock. The popular opinion that meteorites reach the ground when they are hot is not true, some meteorites accumulate ice after they fall.

In light of these findings, what are the chances of life elsewhere?
"Life in similar planetary systems may have equal chances. Mars almost certainly contained life but then it lost its magnetic field and life but this is only a hypothesis. Since the raw materials were much more complex than previously thought, they could more easily assemble with each other and form biological molecules. "

In a rare coincidence, Chatter's Mill was also the site of the California Gold Rush of 1849. Tracking the falling meteor using a Doppler radar, which is usually used for weather measurements, enabled the rapid discovery and investigation for the first time of a primitive material that was only slightly exposed to the materials of the Earth.

The opportunity to examine primary material from space before it becomes contaminated is rare, in order to still reach these samples, several spacecraft have been launched to comets and asteroids. In 2016, the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft planned to bring samples to Earth from an asteroid 600 million kilometers distant from us will be launched.

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