Chemical Interactions Among Organics, Water, and Minerals in the Early Solar System

Abstract

Chondritic meteorites are thought to have originated from primitive small bodies of the Solar System formed 4.5 billion years ago. Investigations on origin and chemical evolution of organic molecules in the early Solar System have been extremely improved through the chemical analyses of carbonaceous chondritic meteorites, which are derived from primitive small bodies. While carbonaceous chondrites have provided a number of significant insights on possible building blocks of life as well as the relationship between the compositions of organics and the parent body aqueous processes, precursors and locations for formation of meteoritic organics are yet to determine. It is because most of the information on the earlier stage of the Solar System history was erased by extensive degrees of aqueous alteration on the meteorite parent bodies. For constraining the origin of organic molecules in the early Solar System, it is necessary to investigate more primitive Solar System materials available to us than the typical carbonaceous chondrites, as well as it is very important to correctly determine the different evolution stages by observation to reveal the relationships between organic chemistry and mineralogy.