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Lunar fines and a chip from inside a rock pyrolyzed in helium at 700 degrees C gave methane, other gases, and aromatic hydrocarbons. Benzene/methanol extracts of fines yielded traces of high molecular weight alkanes and sulfur. Traces of glycine, alanine, ethanolamine, and urea were found in aqueous extracts. Biological controls and a terrestrial rock, dunite, subjected to exhaust from the lunar module descent engine showed a different amino acid distribution. Interpretation of the origin of the carbon compounds requires extreme care, because of possible contamination acquired during initial sample processing.

Considerable evidence of diverse kinds has accumulated during the last 6 years indicating that some or possibly most of the stone meteorites come from the moon. Included in these may well be the carbonaceous chondrites of the Orgueil type and this indicates that contamination of the moon with terrestrial water has occurred. This statement does not depend on the carbonaceous matter being of biotic origin. Models for the origin of the moon are consistent with the hypothesis that some contamination of this kind occurred. This conclusion is possible regardless of whether the meteorites come from the moon or not.

IN a recent communication1, Dr. Kohman suggests that tektites are meteorites which originate in interstellar space and collide with the solar system. I should like to direct attention again to the various facts that must be explained by any acceptable postulated history of these objects. (1) Tektites have chemical compositions remarkably similar to those of the more acid sedimentary rocks. This is true for the major and minor constituents. (I have been privileged to see analyses as yet unpublished on these minor constituents.) Such a chemical composition is not produced by any other naturally occurring chemical processes that we know of, except perhaps in very rare and special circumstances. (2) Tektites obviously have been melted, and this means that a temperature of some 1,500° C. or more was supplied by some means. In fact some appear to have been reheated to the melting point by passage through gas or by a blast of gas over the object. No terrestrial source of heat is known which could produce such high temperatures. (3) They are distributed thinly over areas of hundreds and thousands of kilometres in linear dimensions. (4) They are reported to contain aluminium-26 and beryllium-10. This observation is due to Dr. Kohman and Dr. Ehmann.

Chemical composition of moon from Surveyor results, noting resemblance to terrestrial basalt

In the hypothesis advanced here it is supposed that the field, in which rocks at the lunar surface acquired the remanent magnetization found through the Apollo project, arose from permanent magnetization of the deep interior of the moon. This theory involves the assumption that the moon, apart from a surface shell, accreted cold and remained below the Curie point of iron until sometime later than 3 x 10(9) years ago. The magnetization was acquired as the moon formed in a gas sphere in the strong magnetic field of the early sun.