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Published Online August 23, 2001
Science DOI: 10.1126/science.1062614

Reports

Submitted on May 17, 2001
Accepted on August 14, 2001

The Organic Content of the Tagish Lake Meteorite

Sandra Pizzarello 1, Yongsong Hang 2, Luann Becker 3, Robert J. Poreda 4, Ronald A. Nieman 1, George Cooper 5, Michael Williams 1

1 Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85287, USA.
2 Department of Geological Sciences, Brown University, Providence, RI 02912, USA.
3 School of Oceanography, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195, USA.
4 Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY 14627, USA.
5 NASA Ames Research Center, Moffet Field, CA 94035, USA.

The Tagish Lake meteorite fell last year on a frozen lake in Canada and may provide the most pristine material of its kind. Analyses have now shown this carbonaceous chondrite to contain a suite of soluble organic compounds (~ 100 ppm) that includes: mono- and dicarboxylic acids, dicarboximides, pyridine carboxylic acids, a sulfonic acid, and both aliphatic and aromatic hydrocarbons. The insoluble carbon exhibits exclusive aromatic character, deuterium enrichment, and fullerenes containing "planetary" helium and argon. The findings provide insight to an outcome of early solar chemical evolution which differs from any seen so far in meteorites.


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