Meteorite offers insight into early evolution

ORGANIC chemicals in a meteorite that exploded above Canada 11 years ago have provided strong evidence of life’s building blocks evolving in space.

Fragments of the rock that landed on Tagish Lake, British Columbia, yielded a mix of organic compounds. They included amino acids and monocarboxylic acids, both essential to the evolution of the first simple life forms on Earth.

Analysis of the chemicals revealed information about their history on the asteroid from which the meteorite came, and lent weight to the theory that organic material originates in gas and dust clouds between the stars.