Raman Spectroscopy on Cometary and Meteoritic Organic Matter

Extraterrestrial organic matter (OM) is an important component of meteorites that originate from asteroids and from cometary dust collected from comet Wild 2 and the Earth's atmosphere. Some of this OM was incorporated into the first planetary bodies during the formation of the solar system, 4.56 Ga ago, and did not experience significant alteration. Here, we summarize our efforts in the comparative C Raman spectroscopy of this OM. We aim for the identification of the most primitive OM that might be of solar nebula origin and a better understanding of the modifying processes on parent bodies, during transport in space and sample collection. We (i) determine the degree of order of meteoritic OM and hence the metamorphism experienced on their parent bodies; (ii) assess potential effects during sample collection of comet Wild 2 dust, and (iii) compare possibly cometary interplanetary dust particles (IDPs) with primitive meteorites.