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Discovery

Science Stories: Series 2 - Orgueil Meteorite

Discovery

BBC

Science, Technology

4.31.2K Ratings

🗓️ 18 April 2016

⏱️ 27 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In 1864 a strange type of rock fell from the sky above Orgueil in rural France. Shocked and frightened locals collected pieces of the peculiar, peaty blob from the surrounding fields, and passed them on to museums and scientists.

At that time, a debate had been raging over the origin of life; Could life possibly form from mere chemicals? Or did it need some strange unidentified vital substance?

Into this debate fell the Orgueil meteorite, and because it seemed remarkably similar to loamy soil, some wondered whether it may hint at the existence of extra-terrestrial life.

The great Pasteur allegedly investigated, but disappointingly found no such thing. Nevertheless, the mere possibility prompted later ideas that the origin of life on earth indeed lay elsewhere in the universe, ideas that were greeted with varying degrees of scepticism over ensuing decades.

As Phil Ball narrates, given how much was at stake, and how bitterly scientists argued on either side, the most remarkable thing about the story is the extraordinary secret the meteorite kept to itself until exactly 100 years later.

Producer: Alex Mansfield

Image: These faint shapes found in meteorite AH844001 found in Antarctica were, until quite recently, thought by some to be alien fossils. But thoughts of extra-terrestrial life being carried in such meteorites goes back at least as far as 19th century France. BBC Copyright

Transcript

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0:00.0

Thank you for downloading from the BBC.

0:03.0

The details of our complete range of podcasts and our terms of use,

0:07.0

go to BBCworldservice.com slash podcasts.

0:11.0

I'm Philip Ball and this is Discovery on the BBC World Service.

0:17.0

Time now for another science story.

0:20.0

Scientists. Scientists from the American Space Agency NASA are expected to make an

0:28.0

announcement later this month revealing remarkable new findings at the May

0:31.8

once have been life on Mars.

0:34.0

It's expected to disclose that a meteorite which fell to Earth from the planet contains a fossil. Today, Rock 84001, speaks to us across all those billions of years and millions of miles.

0:51.0

It speaks to the possibility of life. If this discovery is confirmed, it will

0:57.6

surely be one of the most stunning insights into our universe that science has ever

1:02.2

uncovered. Its implications are as far-reaching

1:06.6

and awe-inspiring as can be imagined.

1:08.6

U.S. President Bill Clinton speaking at the White House in August 1996.

1:17.0

Rock 84001 was a meteorite that had fallen to Earth after being blasted off the planet Mars in the distant

1:25.7

past and drifting here through interplanetary space.

1:30.8

It was found in 1984 lying in the snow and ice of Antarctica and scientists at the US

1:36.7

Space Agency, NASA, had analysed it closely looking at the chemical compounds that it was

1:42.1

made of

1:42.9

and the oddly shaped microscopic blobs they had found in it.

1:47.8

At a packed press conference, they concluded

1:50.8

this meteorite might contain the telltale fingerprints of life, alien life,

...

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