Caroline Smith on meteorites and potential ancient life on Mars

The Life Scientific

BBC

Technology, Personal Journals, Society & Culture, Science

4.6 • 1.4K Ratings

🗓️ 25 November 2025

⏱️ 29 minutes

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Summary

Caroline Smith is passionate about space rocks, whether they’re samples collected from the surface of asteroids and the Moon and hopefully Mars one day soon, or meteorites, those alien rock fragments that have survived their fiery descents through our atmosphere to land here on Earth.

She is Head of Collections and Principal Curator of Meteorites at the Natural History Museum, home to one of the finest meteorite collections in the world. Her interest in rocks began while wandering the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, as a child, picking up the ones that caught her eye and bashing them with a hammer, hoping to find treasure inside, whether it’s gold, diamonds or dinosaur fossils.

Her work today, studying rocks that have landed here on Earth or those still out there in space, is no less ambitious. She analyses their chemical composition looking for tantalising clues that might reveal how our Solar System formed, and potentially the presence of the chemical building blocks necessary for life itself.

Presented by Jim Al-Khalili Produced by Beth Eastwood Executive Producer: Alexandra Feachem BBC Studios Production

Transcript

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0:00.0	BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts.
0:07.0	Hello, I'm Emma Barnett. For most of my career, I've been on live radio, and I love it.
0:13.3	But I've always wondered, what if we'd had more time? How much deeper does the story go?
0:19.2	I remember having this very sharp thought that what you do right now, this is it.
0:24.3	This defines your life.
0:26.0	I'm ready to talk and ready to listen.
0:28.3	I'm insulted by how little the medical community is ever bothered with this.
0:33.9	Ready to talk with me, Emma Barnard, is my new podcast.
0:37.0	Listen on BBC Sounds. You're about to
0:39.4	listen to the latest series of the Life Scientific. Episodes will be released weekly wherever you get
0:45.2	your podcasts. But if you're in the UK, you can listen to the latest episodes 28 days before
0:51.8	anywhere else, first on BBC Sounds.
0:55.7	My guest today's passion is space rocks,
0:59.1	whether they're samples collected from the surface of the moon or asteroids
1:02.9	and hopefully one day Mars,
1:04.9	or meteorites, those alien rock fragments that have survived their fiery descents
1:09.6	through our atmosphere to land here on
1:11.6	Earth. Caroline Smith is head of collections and principal curator of meteorites at the Natural
1:17.0	History Museum, home to one of the finest meteorite collections in the world. Her interest in
1:22.3	rocks began while wandering the foothills of the rocky mountains as a child, picking up the ones that caught her eye and bashing them with a hammer,
1:30.3	hoping to find treasure inside, whether it's gold, diamonds or dinosaur fossils.
1:35.2	Her work today studying rocks, both those from outer space and those still out there,
	...

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