"I think it's too early to say how [the carbonaceous material] got there... the important thing is that people are always arguing with fallen meteorites that this is something that got in there after it fell to Earth.
"I think we can dismiss that. There's no way a solid piece of carbon got inside a meteorite."
Analysis of the interior revealed channels and pores filled with a complex mixture of carbon compounds. Some of this forms a dark, branching - or dendritic - material when seen under the microscope.
"It's really interesting material. We don't exactly know what it means yet, but it's all over the thin sections of the Nakhla material," said co-author Kathie Thomas Keprta, of Lockheed Martin Corporation in Houston, Texas.
Uh. yeah. Too early to say how carbon got inside a solid rock. Maybe when the rock was formed?
Wowza! I wonder what the born-agains will make of this. Carbon, as we know, only comes from the inside of rocks when carbon-based life dies - either inside the rock, or outside and then is swept up and the melted rock swirls around it or as crystals grow around the carbon. This was not a crystal, though.
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