NASA Astrobiology Finds Primordial Organic Matter in the Zag Meteorite

Reported in SciTechDaily: A recent study supported in part by the NASA Astrobiology Program provides new data on meteoritic materials that could have originated from primitive bodies in the Solar System. Researchers used a suite of analyses to study carbon-containing compounds in a xenolithic clast of the Zag (H5) meteorite, which was recovered in 1998 when it fell to Earth near Zag, Morocco. A xenolith is a rock fragment embedded in another rock, and it is thought that such fragments found meteorites could be material from bodies of rock and dust that existed very early-on in the Solar System’s history. As such, xenoliths could help astrobiologists understand the evolution of our system through time, and ultimately the conditions that led to the habitability of Earth. The results of the study indicate that the Zag clast is different from other known carbonaceous chondrite groups, and that it likely originated from the outer Solar System. Read More