For the first time, a research team has analyzed the famousU.K.Extraterrestrial amino acids and other organic compounds in the Winchcombe meteorite.Meteorites are fragments of asteroids that come to Earth as meteors. These cosmic deposits freeze the original "soup" produced by the solar system, allowing them to be preserved like a time capsule. These rocks help researchers explore the origins of matter and life on Earth.

Dr. Christian Vollmer from the Institute of Mineralogy at the University of Münster, together with British colleagues, studied one of the time capsules, a very special time capsule - the Winchcombe meteorite.

Now, using a new detector design, the research team has demonstrated for the first time with high precision the presence of some important nitrogen compounds as well as amino acids and heterocyclic hydrocarbons in this meteorite without any chemical treatment. Relevant results have been published in the journal Nature Communications.

The Winchcombe meteorite was observed by a camera network in the UK in February 2021 and collected within just a few days. "Typically, meteorites are tracked in Earth's cold and hot deserts, where the dry climate means meteorites don't weather as quickly, but they do change in response to humidity," Christian-Vollmer said. "If a meteorite fall event is observed soon after it occurs, and the meteorites are collected quickly, as was the case at Winchcombe, then they are important 'witnesses' to us about the birth of the solar system - which makes them particularly interesting in terms of study."

Using a nanomanipulator and an ultrafine ion beam, a tiny slice of about five by ten microns and only a hundred nanometers thin was cut from the meteorite and fixed on a sample rod. Scientists can then analyze the organic particles in this thin slice under an electron microscope (right). Source: SuperSTEM Laboratory, Daresbury, UK

The origin of life on our planet remains a mystery, and some researchers believe that the earliest biologically relevant materials were transported to Earth by meteorites more than 4 billion years ago. These substances include complex organic compounds such as amino acids or hydrocarbons. However, the concentrations of these molecules are so low that experts usually have to use solvents or acids to separate them from the meteorites before performing enrichment analyses.

Christian Vollmer's group is now the first to be able to demonstrate the presence of these biologically relevant nitrogen compounds in the Winchcomb meteorite without first treating them chemically, although these substances are also present in very low concentrations in the Winchcomb meteorite.

For their work, the researchers used a modern high-resolution electron microscope, which can be found in only a few places around the world. This "super microscope" is located at the SuperSTEM Laboratory in Dallesbury, UK. It can not only display high-carbon compounds with atomic resolution, but also perform chemical analysis of samples through new detectors.

"Demonstrating the presence of these biologically relevant organic compounds in unprocessed meteorites is a major research achievement," Vollmer said. "It shows that it is possible to characterize these building blocks of life in these cosmic sediments even without chemical extraction. The findings are also significant because chemical treatments may alter these fragile materials."

Because of this, the analytical methods applied here to solid matter are also potentially valuable for studying small extraterrestrial specimens brought back to Earth from space missions, such as the asteroid dust particles recently brought back by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (Hayabusa2) and NASA (OSIRIS-REx).

Compiled source: ScitechDaily