Chondrite meteorIn 1806, a 6-kg chondrite meteorite - carrying carbon-based, organic chemicals - was unequivocally identified for the first time. Its arrival on earth was noted at 5:30 pm, outside Alais, France. The organic chemicals it carried suggested the possibility of life on whatever body was the source, somewhere in the universe. According to the observations of Berzelius and a commission appointed by the French Academy it “emits a faint bituminous substance” when heated. Berzelius reported his analysis of the Alais meteorite in 1833 that destructive distillation yielded a blackish substance, indiginous water, carbon dioxide gas, a soluble salt containing ammonia, and a blackish-brown sublimate, which Berzelius confessed was unknown to him. |
