Related papers: Extraterrestrial nucleobases in the Murchison mete…
Carbonaceous chondrites are a class of meteorite known for having a high content of water and organics. In this study, abundances of the nucleobases, i.e., the building blocks of RNA and DNA, found in carbonaceous chondrites are collated…
Prebiotic molecules, fundamental building blocks for the origin of life, have been found in carbonaceous chondrites. The exogenous delivery of these organic molecules onto the Hadean Earth could have sparked the polymerization of the first…
The high occurrence on Earth of ordinary chondrite meteorites and the making of models based upon arbitrary assumptions has led to some confusion about the origin of ordinary chondrites. Major element fractionation among chondrites has been…
The origin of organic compounds detected in meteorites and comets, some of which could serve as precursors of life on Earth, still remains an open question. The aim of the present study is to make one more step in revealing the nature and…
In this chapter we review the astrophysical origins of Earth's carbon, starting from the products of the Big Bang and culminating with the Earth's formation. We review the measured compositions of different primitive objects including…
Outgassing is a central process during the formation and evolution of terrestrial planets and their atmospheres both within and beyond the solar system. Although terrestrial planets' early atmospheres likely form via outgassing during…
Carbonaceous chondrite meteorites are known for having high water and organic material contents, including amino acids. Here we address the origin of amino acids in the warm interiors of their parent bodies (planetesimals) within a few…
Chondritic meteorites constitute the most ancient rock record available in the laboratory to study the formation of the solar system and its planets. Detailed investigations of their mineralogy, petrography, chemistry and isotopic…
Chondrites are undifferentiated sediments of material left over from the earliest solar system and are widely considered as representatives of the unprocessed building blocks of the terrestrial planets. The chondrites, along with processed…
Some families of carbonaceous chondrites are rich in prebiotic organics that may have contributed to the origin of life on Earth and elsewhere. However, the formation and chemical evolution of complex soluble organic molecules from…
Recently, I reported the discovery of a new fundamental relationship of the major elements (Fe, Mg, Si) of chondrites that admits the possibility that ordinary chondrite meteorites are derived from two components, a relatively oxidized and…
Volatile compositions of asteroids provide information on the Solar System history and the origins of Earth's volatiles. Visible to near-infrared observations at wavelengths of $<2.5\ {\rm \mu m}$ have suggested a genetic link between outer…
Meteorites are classified as either non-carbonaceous- (NC) or carbonaceous (CC), representing bodies that likely formed in the inner- or outer solar system, respectively. Despite its location in the inner solar system, the Earth is thought…
Major element fractionation among chondrites has been discussed for decades as ratios relative to Si or Mg. Expressing ratios relative to Fe leads to a new relationship admitting the possibility that ordinary chondrite meteorites are…
Fragments of small solar system bodies entering Earth's atmosphere have possibly been important contributors of organic compounds to the early Earth. The cyano radical (CN) emission from meteors is considered as potentially one of the most…
Given the central role of carbon in the chemistry of life, it is a fundamental question as to how carbon is supplied to the Earth, in what form and when. We provide an accounting of carbon found in solar system bodies, in particular a…
Knowledge of the nucleosynthetic isotope composition of the outermost protoplanetary disk is critical to understand the formation and early dynamical evolution of the Solar System. We report the discovery of outer disk material preserved in…
The possible meteorite parent body origin of Earth's pregenetic nucleobases is substantiated by the guanine (G), adenine (A) and uracil (U) measured in various meteorites. Cytosine (C) and thymine (T) however are absent in meteorites,…
One of the major unresolved problems in cosmochemistry is the origin of chondrules, once molten, spherical silicate droplets with diameters of 0.2 to 2 mm. Chondrules are an essential component of primitive meteorites and perhaps of all…
The isotopic compositions of terrestrial hydrogen and nitrogen are clearly different from those of the nebular gas from which the solar system formed, and also differ from most of cometary values. Terrestrial N and H isotopic compositions…