Handling and Analyses of Trace Amounts of Extraterrestrial Organic Matter.

Extraterrestrial organic matter has been greatly interested in with relevance to prebiotic evolution of organic matter and origins of life. Since the organic matter in extraterrestrial material is a mixture of many kinds of organic compounds, wet analytical methods are most suitable for the analyses of these compounds. The methods include extraction of soluble organic matter, chromatographic separations into fractions, and molecular identification by analytical instruments. They also allow to separate enantiomers of amino acids, and to determine isotopic compositions of specific compounds. The experimental details should be optimized for detection of compounds as many as possible. They should be carried out very carefully in order to minimize possible terrestrial contamination.