This Martian meteorite contains a toxin that makes pigs vomit
The detection of a toxin that makes humans and pigs vomit could solve the 100-year-old mystery surrounding the pristine Martian meteorite called “Lafayette.”
Lafayette was driven from the surface of March millions of years ago and eventually found its way to Purdue University in Indiana. In 1931, the unusual smooth black stone was identified as pristine meteorite. However, it has been unknown for 90 years how Purdue University got the stone and who gave it to the university. Now, scientists analyzing the meteorite say a strange compound found in it could be the clue that breaks the case.
A possible discovery of the Lafayette space rock was reported by meteorite collector Harvey Nininger in 1935. He said a Black Purdue student witnessed the meteorite land in a pond while fishing, retrieved the rock, and he gave it to the university.
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However, evidence to support this story had been scant. So in 2019, a team of researchers led by Áine O’Brien, a planetary scientist at the University of Glasgow in Scotland, set out to solve this mystery.
“Lafayette is a really beautiful meteorite sample, which has taught us a lot about Mars through previous research,” O’Brien said in a statement. “Part of what made it so valuable is that it’s so well preserved, which means it must have been recovered quickly after it landed.”
O’Brien noted that when meteorites are left out of the elements for significant periods of time, their outer layers peel away and pick up terrestrial contaminants, reducing their research value.
“The unusual combination of Lafayette’s quick protection from the elements and the small trace of contamination it picked up during its brief time in the mud is what made this work possible,” he said.
A nauseating track
The team began their investigation by grinding up a small sample of the meteorite and analyzing it with a spectrometer, an instrument that looks for the unique chemical “fingerprints” of elements and compounds.
O’Brien was looking for organic molecules that might indicate life once existed on Mars, but what the planetary scientist found was distinctly terrestrial in nature. Among thousands of compounds, the scientist found deoxynivalenol (DON), a toxin found in a fungus that grows on crops such as corn, wheat and oats. When ingested, DON causes disease in humans and animals, especially pigs.
O’Brien mentioned the detection of DON to a colleague familiar with the story of the Lafayette discovery, who pointed out that DON may have found its way to the meteorite through dust from the crops that found the its way to the waterways around where the rock made its mud splash at Tippecanoe. County, Indiana.
The team contacted researchers from Purdue University’s agronomy and botany departments, who were dedicated to determining the prevalence of the DON-carrying fungus in the region prior to 1931, when the origins of the meteorite
Research revealed that the fungus was most prevalent in 1919, when it caused a 10% to 15% drop in crop yield, with a smaller drop in crop yield in 1929. Although the fungus was more prevalent, there was a greater likelihood that it would be carried beyond farmland, taking the DON toxin along with it.
Investigators also worked to determine when Lafayette might have arrived landchecking out accounts of regional fireballs, streaks of light caused when meteorites heat up as they pass by earth’s atmosphere.
Two particular fireball sightings stood out, in both southern Michigan and northern Indiana: one on November 26, 1919, and another in 1927 that deposited the Tilden meteorite in Illinois, the largest space rock ever hit state in recorded history.
With these dates in hand, Purdue University archivists set about searching the institution’s records for black students attending at that time. They identified Julius Lee Morgan and Clinton Edward Shaw, Class of 1921, and Hermanze Edwin Fauntleroy, Class of 1922, all enrolled at Purdue in 1919. A fourth student, Clyde Silance, studied at Purdue in 1927.
The researchers concluded that, based on Niniger’s account of the Lafayette meteorite arriving at Purdue, one of those four students likely gifted the Martian meteorite to the university. The team hopes further research can identify which student found Lafayette so he can receive the credit he deserves.
“I’m proud that, a century after it arrived on Earth, we can finally reconstruct the circumstances of its landing and come closer than we’ve ever been to giving credit to the black student who found it,” O ‘Brien. said of the meteorite. “I’m very happy that one of them was there to see the Lafayette land and to donate it to Purdue University.”
The team’s research is described aa paper published on October 19 in the journal Astrobiology.
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