Alais or Allais is the first

carbonaceous chondrite Carbonaceous chondrites or C chondrites are a class of chondritic meteorites comprising at least 8 known groups and many ungrouped meteorites. They include some of the most primitive known meteorites. The C chondrites represent only a small prop ...

meteorite A meteorite is a solid piece of debris from an object, such as a comet, asteroid, or meteoroid, that originates in outer space and survives its passage through the atmosphere to reach the surface of a planet or moon. When the original object en ...

identified. It fell near

Alès Alès (; oc, Alès) is a commune in the Gard department in the Occitanie region in southern France. It is one of the sub-prefectures of the department. It was formerly known as ''Alais''. Geography Alès lies north-northwest of Nîmes, on t ...

in 1806 in multiple fragments which together weighed , although only remains. The meteorite contains a number of elements in similar proportions to the solar system in its primordial state. It also contains organic compounds and water. It has proved to be one of the most important meteorites discovered in France.

History

At 17:00 on 15 March 1806, two detonations were heard near

in Gard, France. Shortly afterwards, two soft black stones were discovered in the villages of Saint-Étienne-de-l'Olm and Castelnau-Valence, weighing and respectively. The fragments were collected by people who observed the impact and given to two scientists that lived locally. The meteorite was analysed by

Louis Jacques Thénard Louis Jacques Thénard (4 May 177721 June 1857) was a French chemist. Life He was born in a farm cottage near Nogent-sur-Seine in the Champagne district the son of a farm worker. In the post-Revolution French educational system , most boys rec ...

, who published a study in 1807, showing that it had a high carbon content. It was initially doubted that the fragments were of non-terrestrial origins as their attributes were markedly different to existing meteorites. However, it was increasingly realised that this was a new, albeit rare, type of meteorite. The meteorite is also known as Valence.

Curation and Distribution

As an early fall (soon after the consensus that meteorites were real, extraterrestrial phenomenon), Alais has largely been dispersed. Few samples have been preserved, less than

Orgueil Orgueil (; oc, Orgulh) is a commune in the Tarn-et-Garonne department in the Occitanie region in southern France. History Orgueil has existed for more than 1000 years. It was first mentioned in the 9th century, when Orgueil was part of Saint- ...

, but more than Tonk and particularly Revelstoke. ''Source: Grady, M. M. Catalogue of Meteorites, 5th Edition, Cambridge University Press''

Description

Overview

The Alais meteorite is one of the most important meteorites in France. It is black with loose friable textures with a low density of less than . Originally consisting of fragments that together weighed , it has been subject to substantial scientific examination and currently only remains. A fragment, weighing is held by the

National Museum of Natural History, France The French National Museum of Natural History, known in French as the ' (abbreviation MNHN), is the national natural history museum of France and a ' of higher education part of Sorbonne Universities. The main museum, with four galleries, is loca ...

Composition and classification

The meteorite is one of five known meteorites belonging to the CI chondrite group. This group is remarkable for having an elemental distribution that has the strongest similarity to that of the

solar nebula The formation of the Solar System began about 4.6 billion years ago with the gravitational collapse of a small part of a giant molecular cloud. Most of the collapsing mass collected in the center, forming the Sun, while the rest flattened int ...

. Except for certain volatile elements, like

carbon Carbon () is a chemical element with the symbol C and atomic number 6. It is nonmetallic and tetravalent—its atom making four electrons available to form covalent chemical bonds. It belongs to group 14 of the periodic table. Carbon makes ...

hydrogen Hydrogen is the chemical element with the symbol H and atomic number 1. Hydrogen is the lightest element. At standard conditions hydrogen is a gas of diatomic molecules having the formula . It is colorless, odorless, tasteless, non-toxic ...

oxygen Oxygen is the chemical element with the symbol O and atomic number 8. It is a member of the chalcogen group in the periodic table, a highly reactive nonmetal, and an oxidizing agent that readily forms oxides with most elements as we ...

, nitrogen and the noble gases, which are not present in the meteorites in the same proportions, the ratios of the elements are very similar. The meteorite contains cubanite, dolomite,

fosterite Forsterite (Mg2SiO4; commonly abbreviated as Fo; also known as white olivine) is the magnesium-rich end-member of the olivine solid solution series. It is isomorphous with the iron-rich end-member, fayalite. Forsterite crystallizes in the orth ...

pyrrhotite Pyrrhotite is an iron sulfide mineral with the formula Fe(1-x)S (x = 0 to 0.2). It is a nonstoichiometric variant of FeS, the mineral known as troilite. Pyrrhotite is also called magnetic pyrite, because the color is similar to pyrite and it ...

and

zircon Zircon () is a mineral belonging to the group of nesosilicates and is a source of the metal zirconium. Its chemical name is zirconium(IV) silicate, and its corresponding chemical formula is Zr SiO4. An empirical formula showing some of th ...

amongst other minerals.

Origin of life controversy

The meteorite has been at the centre of controversial claims about an extraterrestrial origin of life since the discovery of organic matter on the meteorite by

Jöns Jacob Berzelius Baron Jöns Jacob Berzelius (; by himself and his contemporaries named only Jacob Berzelius, 20 August 1779 – 7 August 1848) was a Swedish chemist. Berzelius is considered, along with Robert Boyle, John Dalton, and Antoine Lavoisier, to be ...

. Organic compounds, amino acids and water have been found in the meteorite. However, studies differentiate between organic and biological matter, the latter not being present.

References

Citations

Bibliography

* * * * * * * * * {{Authority control Astrobiology Meteorites found in France 1806 in France