“Asteroids Yield Clues To Age Of Earth”

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29398, 28 December 1960, Page 9

“Asteroids Yield Clues To Age Of Earth”

NEW YORK, December 26. A spinning band of rubble in space was yielding new clues to the age of earth—and even the origin of life, a scientist, Dr. Edward Anders, of Chicago University, said today.

Meteorites from the assembly of battered miniature planets and planet debris struck the earth continually. On the stone and iron fragments, scientists had found chemicals remarkably similar to the prerequisites of life, Dr. Anders told the 126th meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Yet the meteorites themselves were at least 4500 million years

old—nearly 4000 million years older than the oldest relics of life found on earth. It indicated that at least some of the prerequisites of life existed in space perhaps 150 million years to 200 million years before the forming of the earth. “It is fascinating to realise that man is now able to reconstruct events that took place long before the origin of life, long

before the origin of earth, and possibly even before the origin of the sun," Dr. Anders said. Sources for the data were the meteorites from the asteroid belt —a collection of colliding, disorganised space debris which whirled around the sun about 100 million to 200 million miles further out than the earth—between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. Dr. Anders called the meteors from the asteroid belt “the most ancient relics of the early solar system. They are the raw material of which the earth, its mountains and its living creatures are the final product.” Dr. Anders was the winner of

the Newcomb Cleveland Prize for the best paper presented at last year’s meeting of the association. Meteors were flung out of the asteroid orbit and some struck the earth after travelling millions of years in space, deep-frozen, with the elements of their birth unchanged. Dr. Anders said. Of those that struck the earth's atmosphere, perhaps only 500 a year were big enough to survive the burning of friction to land on the earth’s surface. Only a few were found each year. Four had been given to scientists in the last two years, he said.