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The Cosmochemical Record of Carbonaceous Meteorites: an Evolutionary Story Journal of the Mexican Chemical Society, Vol Journal of the Mexican Chemical Society ISSN: 1870-249X [email protected] Sociedad Química de México México Pizzarello, Sandra The Cosmochemical Record of Carbonaceous Meteorites: An Evolutionary Story Journal of the Mexican Chemical Society, vol. 53, núm. 4, octubre-diciembre, 2009, pp. 253-260 Sociedad Química de México Distrito Federal, México Disponible en: http://www.redalyc.org/articulo.oa?id=47512356009 Cómo citar el artículo Número completo Sistema de Información Científica Más información del artículo Red de Revistas Científicas de América Latina, el Caribe, España y Portugal Página de la revista en redalyc.org Proyecto académico sin fines de lucro, desarrollado bajo la iniciativa de acceso abierto J. Mex. Chem. Soc. 2009, 53(4), 253-260 Account © 2009, Sociedad Química de México ISSN 1870-249X The Cosmochemical Record of Carbonaceous Meteorites: An Evolutionary Story Sandra Pizzarello Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85287-1604. USA. [email protected]. Received October 24, 2009; accepted December 18, 2009 Abstract. This account traces a lecture given to El Colegio Nacional Resumen. Esta reseña resume una conferencia impartida en marzo last March during a Conference “On the origin of life on the Earth” pasado en El Colegio Nacional en el Simposio “Sobre el origen de organized to celebrate Darwin’s Bicentennial. It reports on the extra- la vida en la Tierra” organizado para la celebración del Bicentenario terrestrial organic materials found in carbon-containing meteorites, del nacimiento de Darwin. Se informa sobre los materiales orgá- their composition, likely origin and possible prebiotic contribution to nicos extraterrestres encontrados en meteoritos que contienen early terrestrial environments. Overall, this abiotic chemistry displays carbono, su composición, origen probable y su posible contribu- structures as diverse as kerogen-like macromolecules and simpler sol- ción prebiótica al ambiente terrestre incial. Esta química abiótica uble compounds, such as amino acids, amines and polyols, and show incluye estructuras diversas, tales como macromoléculas querogé- an isotopic composition that verifies their extraterrestrial origin and nicas y compuestos solubles simples, como amino ácidos, aminas lineage to cosmochemical synthetic regimes. Some meteoritic com- y polioles, y muestran una composición isotópica que confirma su pounds have identical counterpart in the biosphere and encourage the origen extraterrestre y su linaje sintético cosmoquímico. Algunos proposal that their exogenous delivery to the early Earth might have compuestos meteoríticos tienen contrapartes idénticas en la biós- fostered molecular evolution. Particularly suggestive in this regard fera y apoyan la propuesta referente a que su envío exógeno a la are the unique L-asymmetry of a number of amino acids in some Tierra primitiva podría haber favorecido la evolución molecular. meteorites as well as the rich and almost exclusively water-soluble Particularmente sugerente en este aspecto es la asimetría L exclusiva compositions discovered for other meteorite types. como su rica y casi exclusiva composición soluble en agua también Key words: Cosmochemical, Life, Earth, Abiotic Chemistry, descubierta en otros tipos de meteoritos. Macromolecules. Palabras clave: Cosmoquímica, vida, Tierra, química abiótica, macromoléculas. Introduction The quest for life’s origin, therefore, has to rely only on hypotheses and these must reasonably be drawn from what Much has been said in Darwin’s honour in the past year as we as yet know of the chemical processes that surrounded that we came, once again, to recognize his towering scientific beginning: the preceding chemical evolution and the biological accomplishments. Less noted amidst the celebrations was the evolution that followed. Darwin’s assumption is in line with fact that Darwin, in one of his intuitions for fundamental our current approach, which is based on the record of life’s questions, also addressed the theme of the origin of life. He fundamental evolutionary nature throughout its cellular history touched upon it only once, in a private occasion writing to and the reasonable assumption that the same property extended a friend [1], but undeniably foretold the idea of extending to its beginnings. We have also learned much about extrater- biological evolution to prebiotic chemistry. It is disappoint- restrial chemistry in the last decades, we know now that life’s ing and frustrating that, in spite of the tremendous advances elements C, H, N, O, and S, have a long cosmic history dur- in evolutionary biology that followed “On origin of species”, ing which complex organic molecules are formed in diverse the studies on the origin of life are still fraught to this date environments, from the gas and dust of the interstellar clouds with equally large unknowns and general uncertainties, if not to small solar system bodies [2], and this understanding of an larger, as the ones Darwin faced in his efforts and we are still active cosmochemical evolution has further led to question exploring his idea today. whether those two evolutionary processes surrounding life’s The actual origin of life, if we mean to define it as the origin ever actually met and, if so, when and how. It is in this emergence of a self-reproducing complex chemistry that exobiological context that the study of carbonaceous meteor- is capable of evolving and sustaining life’s functions, is ites has offered a somewhat surprising study guide for both still utterly unknown. It will not be easy to decipher either, setting the prebiotic stage of the early Earth and answering at because there are inherent difficulties in the facts that emer- least some of our questions by providing to direct analysis a gent life processes may have differed in their core molecular natural sample of chemical evolution. organization and function from even the simplest of extant Most meteorites are fragments of asteroids, planetesi- life forms, from which they are so far removed, and that mals of odd size and shape that orbit the Sun in great number the records of early Earth primitive chemistry have been between Mars and Jupiter and are the remnants of a planet that destroyed by over four billion years of ensuing geological and never formed. It appears that, during the formation of the solar biological changes. system, the aggregating “embrios” [3] of nebular materials on 254 J. Mex. Chem. Soc. 2009, 53(4) Sandra Pizzarello the way to form a planet in this region fell under the gravity of magnetic resonance spectroscopy, pyrolytic decomposition or the giant planets and were either scattered in various directions microscopy. By this combination of techniques, it appears as or left unable to coalesce. This dynamical instability brought a fluffy undifferentiated material (Fig.1a) [11] and to have the in objects from outer orbits as well, such as the transNeptunian approximate composition shown in Figure 1b [12], i.e., to con- asteroids [4] that have been seen to periodically behave as sist of condensed aromatic, hydroaromatic, and heteroaromatic comets [5], also leading to continual collisions and the deliv- macromolecules containing alkyl branching, functional groups, ery of their fragments to the Earth through the ages. Although such as OH and COOH, that are bridged by alkyl chains and some of the asteroids did grow big enough to form an iron core ether or sulfur linkages. Macromolecular carbonaceous mate- (from them come the familiar iron meteorites), most never had rial free of minerals can also be found in untreated Murchison their composition drastically transformed by gravitational high powders as distinct and compositionally heterogeneous nano- temperatures or pressures and their meteoritic fragments are sized entities such as aromatic flakes, solid and hollow spheres expected to contain unaltered a pristine record of early Solar or tubes [11] that, by visual estimate, appear to have an abun- System chemistry. This is particularly true for the carbona- dance of up to 10% of total insoluble carbon (Fig.1a). Other ceous chondrites (CC), a primitive sub-group of stony mete- minor components of this insoluble material are sometimes orites of elemental composition very similar to the one of the described as exotic carbon species for their relation to isotopi- Universe overall that have the distinction of containing several cally exotic He, Xe, and Ne: the nanodiamonds, silicon car- percent amounts (~1.5-4%) of carbon, the most part of which bide, graphite and fullerenes, which are considered of presolar is present as organic materials. Uniquely, therefore, the studies origin and may have formed in the outflow of carbon stars [8]. of these meteorites have entered the discussion on the origin of Overall, these compositional characteristics would seem life, as they tell us of the organic chemistry that came to be in to imply that CC insoluble carbon was unlikely to contribute to the Solar System, at the time the Earth was formed and before the inception of life. CC organic carbon content was recognized since their first analyses in the nineteenth century [6], however, the unequivo- cal discovery of abiotic extraterrestrial organic material came with the fall of the Murchison meteorite, in September 1969 [7]. This was a propitious fall because, at the time, many labo- ratories in the US were preparing for returning lunar samples and the possibility that they could contain organic compounds; so it happened that NASA scientist analyzed
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