True we can make it synthetically. But as I said that's not the way it occurs in nature. Of course you could say it was formed artificially by someone else in space. ;-)
Actually, if you look at the Wikipedia article, even when produced in industry you still need petroleum products or coal derivatives to produce it, which themselves arise from prior living material.



- Bob Clark

There is Tommy Gold's theory in the Deep Hot Biosphere:

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/8.07/gold_pr.html

I have never read anything to suggest that they think the complex organics in comet dust -- or in interstellar dust -- might even conceivably be biologically produced. (Now, on the other hand, it may have been a useful precursor to the appearance of terrestrial life by seeding the ancient Earth...)

Contrary to all the wild speculation, I think the problem might be finding something interesting to say in a press briefing. They have already said what can be learned from the samples, no need to call a briefing to repeat that. Now they have to wait til there is something new to say.

Capsules From the Cosmos: Stardust Success Could Signal More Sample Missions

http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/06012...e_capsules.html

When the Stardust capsule blazed its way through Earth's atmosphere to a
parachute landing in Utah earlier this month, the event was a preview of
extraterrestrial attractions to come.

Well, clearly, you're not going to have a mainstream scientist proclaim life in comets, prior to having samples to look at.
I expect at least the interstellar dust collected to contain tar-like organics. It will be interesting to find out how complex those organics are.
However, at least some of the Wild 2 dust collected appears to be mineral:

Dissecting Stardust
"The holes are carrot-shaped, with a large entry hole that tapers to a point. The first photograph of a cometary particle shows it residing in the very tip of the tunnel it drilled, like the dot of an exclamation point. The particle is only 11 microns across, and appears to be a transparent mineral grain.
"Scientifically, that's great, because there's been lots of discussion of whether comets contain minerals or glass," says Brownlee."
http://www.astrobio.net/news/article1841.html



- Bob Clark

Could the dark material on Iapetus be the same kind of material found on comets?

Is it an organic "tar"?

Wow!



- http://stardust.jpl.nasa.gov/news/status/060125.html - Stardust Status Report / Jan 25

http://www.nationalacademies.org/headlines/20060126.html

Interstellar Dust Returned to Earth for Study

By Lisa Pickoff-White

January 26 - NASA's Stardust spacecraft traveled more than 2.88 billion miles, over seven years, to bring back samples of some of the oldest materials in the solar system. Inside the canister is a collection of grains of comet and interstellar dust that will be sent to investigators worldwide for research.

These materials consist of ancient pre-solar interstellar grains and cometary dust. Analysis of the celestial specks is expected to yield important insights into the formation of the solar system. The spacecraft collected the comet remnants by flying within 149 miles of the comet Wild 2 in January 2004 and collected interstellar dust as it traveled throughout the solar system.

The same week as Stardust's arrival, NASA launched New Horizons, the first spacecraft to explore Pluto and its moon Charon, an area of great interest to scientists exploring the origins of the solar system. Recently, scientists discovered two possible new moons of Pluto using the Hubble Space Telescope.

A National Research Council report, New Frontiers in the Solar System: An Integrated Exploration Strategy, examines the nature of contemporary solar system exploration and why it remains a scientifically compelling activity today. It makes several recommendations for NASA's space exploration agenda over the next decade, prioritizing missions within different size classes, including collecting fragments of a comet and further exploration of Pluto and the Kuiper belt region Assessment of Options for Extending the Life of the Hubble Space Telescope: Final Report recommends that to ensure continuation of the extraordinary scientific output of the Hubble Space Telescope and to prepare for its eventual de-orbiting, NASA should send a space shuttle mission, not a robotic one for repairs.

New Frontiers in the Solar System: An Integrated Exploration Strategy 2003

http://books.nap.edu/catalog/10432.html

Assessment of Options for Extending the Life of the Hubble Space Telescope: Final Report 2005

http://books.nap.edu/catalog/11169.html

Space Studies Board

http://www7.nationalacademies.org/ssb/

Other Resources:

NASA’s Stardust Mission Page

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/stardust/main/index.html

Just to make things clear: organic "tar" does not need a biological origin, in a comet's case all you need is froze organics like CH4, NH3, CO2, H2O and radiation (heat or ionizing) and the radicals and ions formed will polymerize into a assorted mess of complex organic molecules including long chained hydrocarbons (tar). If there is something more in the sludge like prebiotic life that is a very interesting possible, but the prebiotic life would come from the tar, not the tar being a result of the proto-life.

That looks like wallpaper material to me.

Jack

Lovely article, though I still revere Arthur Holmes!

Gold was right to criticise geologists for their adherence to 'fashions', but sadly was no better himself in some ways at avoiding such pitfalls. And even when wildly wrong he was entertaining, unlike the WWW-based contrarians and conspiriologists of today, who are merely appalling...

Bob Shaw

It would seem to me that C-14 or other isotop ratios would be important in figuring out whether or not a given batch of earth-tar is biological. I wonder, about oil-shale and oil sands. Are we reasonably certain all earthly tars are biological?

I also wonder if the large particles sizes messed up the in-situ analysis. When we try to run GCMS in dirty environments, we have to take special measure to make certain the rapidly plugging filters do not adversely affect the flow rate and skew the distribution.

Great film of Stardust's return to Earth, complete with subtitles:

http://stardust.jpl.nasa.gov/anim/stardust_reentrya.mov

Has anyone else noticed that a faint meteor actually streaks briefly at around one minute into the clip?! It appears in the upper left quadrant of the frame, shooting downwards.

Pretty cool, shows just how much faster meteors are than even the "fastest-ever" returning human-made capsule.