Meteorite Holds Possible Clues to Life's Origins

Sept. 8 -- On Jan. 18, a 400,000-pound rock streaked through the sky and slammed into a remote lake in Canada.

Although no one actually saw the meteorite strike Earth, many were startled by the booming sound it made as it exploded in the atmosphere and by the brilliant, multicolored streak it left behind in the clear morning sky.

Data released by secret U.S. Department of Defense satellites is helping Canadian University researchers retrace the path of this extremely rare organic asteroid. Their research may also help reveal clues about the origins of life.

“It’s as though we went out in space on a sampling mission and got a bit of material and brought it back,”said Peter Brown, a meteor scientist in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Western Ontario. “That is extremely valuable scientifically.”

Brown is co-leader of a research team that’s focused on learning from the largest, most important meteorite find in Canadian history. The meteorite struck Tagish Lake in northern British Columbia and scattered in the form of 500 charcoal-like chunks.

Cobbling Images

Local resident, Jim Brook, happened upon the find that was strewn for 4 miles on the lake’s ice. Other witnesses supplied images taken after the impact. The dust trail it left behind hung in the atmosphere long enough for two dozen residents to capture it in photographs and on videotape.

Traditionally, scientists have used such pictures and eyewitness accounts to try and determine the size, velocity and trajectory of meteors and asteroids. The Tagish find marks the first time the DOD has released data for use in calculating the orbit of a recovered meteorite.

Of the 20,000 meteorites ever found, an orbit has been established for only four.

More significantly, the tagish Meteorite also marks the first time there has been enough data to calculate the orbit of a carbonaceous chondrite, an extremely rare, organic meteorite that may be linked to the origins of life.