16. Meteorites

Although this was contrary to popular, and also scientific, belief at the time, the German physicist Ernst Florens Friedrich Chladni (1756-1827) postulated that rocks could in fact fall from the heavens. His statement was supported by eyewitnesses who had observed the descent of meteorites. In France, Jean Baptiste Biot (1774-1862) was able to convince the Academy of Sciences in Paris that they should revise the memorandum which they had published ten years previously and agree that the meteorite fragments which had been found could in fact have their origin in outer space. 

Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859) recognised meteorites as being a source of extraterrestrial material. Several well-known chemists carried out analyses of material from meteorites, starting at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Thus Louis-Jacques Thenard (1777-1857) found carbon in Alais meteorites these results were confirmed in 1834 by Jons Jacob Berzelius, who by dint of very careful work was also able to detect water of crystallisation in meteoritic material. 

there is consensus that meteorites are the most important source of material from outer space. Their study is interesting from two points of view  

Their impact on Earth may possibly have delivered important biomolecules (or their precursors). 

They contain the oldest material from precursors of the Earth and the solar system. 

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After aluminium, iron is the most abundant metal and the fourth most abundant of all the elements it occurs chiefly as oxides (for example haematite (FCjO,), magnetite (lodestonej (FC3O4) and as iron pyrites FeSj- Free iron is found in meteorites, and it is probable that primitive man used this source of iron for tools and weapons. The extraction of iron began several thousand years ago, and it is still the most important metal in everyday life because of its abundance and cheapness, and its ability to be cast, drawn and forged for a variety of uses. 

Latin carbo, charcoal) Carbon, an element of prehistoric discovery, is very widely distributed in nature. It is found in abundance in the sun, stars, comets, and atmospheres of most planets. Carbon in the form of microscopic diamonds is found in some meteorites. 

Silicon is present in the sun and stars and is a principal component of a class of meteorites known as aerolites. It is also a component of tektites, a natural glass of uncertain origin. 

Sulfur is found in meteorites. R.W. Wood suggests that the dark area near the crater Aristarchus is a sulfur deposit. 

Zirconium is found in abundance in S-type stars, and has been identified in the sun and meteorites. Analysis of lunar rock samples obtained during the various Apollo missions to the moon show a surprisingly high zirconium oxide content, compared with terrestrial rocks. 

Iron is a relatively abundant element in the universe. It is found in the sun and many types of stars in considerable quantity. Its nuclei are very stable. Iron is a principal component of a meteorite class known as siderites and is a minor constituent of the other two meteorite classes. The core of the earth — 2150 miles in radius — is thought to be largely composed of iron with about 10 percent occluded hydrogen. The metal is the fourth most abundant element, by weight that makes up the crust of the earth. 

Nickel is found as a constitutent in most meteorites and often serves as one of the criteria for distinguishing a meteorite from other minerals. Iron meteorites, or siderites, may contain iron alloyed with from 5 percent to nearly 20 percent nickel. Nickel is obtained commercially from pentlandite and pyrrhotite of the Sudbury region of Ontario, a district that produces about 30 percent of the world s supply of nicke. 

Vanadium is found in about 65 different minerals among which are carnotite, roscoelite, vanadinite, and patronite, important sources of the metal. Vanadium is also found in phosphate rock and certain iron ores, and is present in some crude oils in the form of organic complexes. It is also found in small percentages in meteorites. 

Titanium is present in meteorites and in the sun. Rocks obtained during the Apollo 17 lunar mission showed presence of 12.1% Ti02 and rocks obtained during earlier Apollo missions show lower percentages. 

Gobalt occurs in the minerals cobaltite, smaltite, and erythrite, and is often associated with nickel, silver, lead, copper, and iron ores, from which it is most frequently obtained as a by-product. It is also present in meteorites. 

When considering how the evolution of life could have come about, the seeding of terrestrial life by extraterrestrial bacterial spores traveling through space (panspermia) deserves mention. Much is said about the possibility of some form of life on other planets, including Mars or more distant celestial bodies. Is it possible for some remnants of bacterial life, enclosed in a protective coat of rock dust, to have traveled enormous distances, staying dormant at the extremely low temperature of space and even surviving deadly radiation The spore may be neither alive nor completely dead, and even after billions of years it could have an infinitesimal chance to reach a planet where liquid water could restart its life. Is this science fiction or a real possibility We don t know. Around the turn of the twentieth century Svante Arrhenius (Nobel Prize in chemistry 1903) developed this theory in more detail. There was much recent excitement about claimed fossil bacterial remains in a Martian meteorite recovered from Antarctica (not since... 

Environmental Aspects. Airborne particulate matter (187) and aerosol (188) samples from around the world have been found to contain a variety of organic monocarboxyhc and dicarboxyhc acids, including adipic acid. Traces of the acid found ia southern California air were related both to automobile exhaust emission (189) and, iadirecfly, to cyclohexene as a secondary aerosol precursor (via ozonolysis) (190). Dibasic acids (eg, succinic acid) have been found even ia such unlikely sources as the Murchison meteorite (191). PubHc health standards for adipic acid contamination of reservoir waters were evaluated with respect to toxicity, odor, taste, transparency, foam, and other criteria (192). BiodegradabiUty of adipic acid solutions was also evaluated with respect to BOD/theoretical oxygen demand ratio, rate, lag time, and other factors (193). 

Percentage of meteorites seen to fall. Chondrites. Over 90% of meteorites that are observed to fall out of the sky are classified as chondrites, samples that are distinguished from terrestrial rocks in many ways (3). One of the most fundamental is age. Like most meteorites, chondrites have formation ages close to 4.55 Gyr. Elemental composition is also a property that distinguishes chondrites from all other terrestrial and extraterrestrial samples. Chondrites basically have undifferentiated elemental compositions for most nonvolatile elements and match solar abundances except for moderately volatile elements. The most compositionaHy primitive chondrites are members of the type 1 carbonaceous (Cl) class. The analyses of the small number of existing samples of this rare class most closely match estimates of solar compositions (5) and in fact are primary source solar or cosmic abundances data for the elements that cannot be accurately determined by analysis of lines in the solar spectmm (Table 2). Table 2. Solar System Abundances of the Elements ... 

Fig. 2. The plot of total reduced iron, Fe, and oxidized iron, Fe, normalized to Si abundance shows how the chondrite classes fall into groups distinguished by oxidation state and total Fe Si ratio. The soHd diagonal lines delineate compositions having constant total Fe Si ratios of 0.6 and 0.8. The fractionation of total Fe Si is likely the result of the relative efficiencies of accumulation of metal and siUcate materials into the meteorite parent bodies. The variation in oxidation state is the result of conditions in the solar nebula when the soHds last reacted with gas. Terms are defined in Table 1 (3).

Chondrite classes are also distinguished by their abundances of both volatile and refractory elements (3). For volatile elements the variation among groups results from incomplete condensation of these elements into soHd grains that accrete to form meteorite parent bodies. Volatile elements such as C,... 

The fractionation of these refractory elements is beheved to be the result of relative efficiencies of incorporation of condensed sohds rich in early high temperature phases into the meteorite parent bodies at different times and locations in the solar nebula. The data are taken from Reference 3. 

Eig. 4. The bulk oxygen isotopic composition of different meteorite classes where (—) is the terrestial fractionation line. The 5 notation refers to the normalized difference between or ratios to those in standard mean ocean water (SMOW) in relative units of parts per thousand. The... 

Within each chondrite class there are petrographic grades that relate to alteration processes that occurred within the meteorite parent body. The... 

Among the rarest of all meteorites are the lunar meteorites. Isotopic, mineralogical, and compositional properties of these samples provide positive identification as lunar samples because of the unique properties of lunar materials that have been discovered by extensive analyses of lunar materials returned by the manned ApoUo and unstaffed Luna missions. AH but one of the lunar meteorites that have been found to date have been recovered from Antarctica. 

Eig. 5. The Widmanstatten pattern ia this poHshed and etched section of the Gibbeon iron meteorite is composed of iatergrown crystals of kamacite and taenite, NiFe phases that differ ia crystal stmcture and Ni content. Ni concentration gradients at crystal boundaries ia this 3-cm-wide sample can be used to estimate the initial cooling rates and corresponding size of the asteroid from which the meteorite was derived. 

Stony Irons. The stony iron meteorites are composed of substantial iron and siUcate components. The paHasites contain cm-sized ohvine crystals embedded ia a soHd FeNi metal matrix and have properties consistent with formation at the core mantle boundary of differentiated asteroids. The mesosiderites are composed of metal and siUcates that were fractured and remixed, presumably ia the near-surface regions of their parent bodies. 

Origin. Typical meteorites have formation ages of 4.55 Gyr and exposure ages of only 10 years, duting which time they existed as meter-sized bodies unshielded to the effects of cosmic rays. With the exception of the SNC (Martian) and lunar meteorites it is widely befleved that most conventional... 

Pig. 6. A 0.3-mm-diameter cosmic spherule coUected from the ocean floor. The particle is composed of oUvine, glass, and magnetite and has a primary element composition similar to chondritic meteorites for nonvolatile elements. The shape is the result of melting and rapid recrystaUi2ation during... 

J. T. Wasson, Meteorites, Their Early Record of Early Solar-Sjstem EListory, W. H. Freeman and Co., New York, 1985. 

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