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town of Murchison, Australia. Most of the residents were attending church when a
fireball exploded, signaling the arrival of the Murchison meteorites. Loud detonations
and "hissing' noises were heard throughout the Goulburn River Valley, and smoke rings
were seen hanging in the air. The meteorites were scattered across a 33 square kilometer
area, and stinking up the whole town with the smell of methylated spirits and dust. This
very rare type of stone meteorite contains, glysine, aspartic and aminoisobutyric acids,
and many more, some of which have never been seen on earth before. Recent studies have
found interstallar grains (formed by a supernova) trapped inside this very old meteorite
which is at least 4.6 billion years old. Looking more like unburned charcoal briquettes than
rocks, people gathered the meteorites from their yards and neighborhood streets. Some 700
kilos of stones rained down out of the sky, the largest weighing only about 15 pounds. The
Murchison meteorites are CM2 carbonaceous chondrites, with important differences from other
carbonaceous chondrites. CM2 meteorites are water-bearing. They contain about 10% water,
resulting in a much more friable and fragile specimen. They must be collected quickly, before
the weather has a chance to destroy them. Scientists believe that meteorites such as this may
have delivered the original "building blocks of life" to our planet, as well as to other planets
in the universe. This immediately raises questions about the origin of life, a subject of much
research and debate today.
E-mail Address: meteorites@att.net