Figure 4.

(A) Evidence for electron carriers in meteorite extracts. The nonpolar compounds of the Murchison meteorite organic extract were allowed to embed in liposome membranes before testing for electron carrier activity. The addition of ascorbate caused a fluorescence quenching of 56% which could be reversed with Triton X-100. The organic compounds of the Murray meteorite sample did not produce quenching when ascorbate was added (B) but addition of PMS led a quenching of fluorescence by 75% which could be reversed with Triton X-100. When the organic extract of the Mighei meteorite was added to the model system, an 86% quenching of fluorescence resulted (C) but could not be reversed with the addition of Triton X-100. The Murchison meteorite organic extract was partially purified by thin layer chromatography and one portion (see Fig. 5) also produced fluorescence quenching of 63% that was reversed by adding Triton X-100 (D).