Few meteorites have been scrutinized more thoroughly than the Murchison meteorite, named after the Australian town it fell near in 1969. But there’s always scope for a closer look. It turns out that all analyses of the famous rock fragments so far have been targeted at extracting amino acids and other biomolecules, in an understandable focus on what they may tell us about homochirality and other origin-of-life mysteries.

Now a European team of assorted chemists and meteorite experts have given Murchison a proper analysis, using high-resolution mass spectrometry to check out every conceivable organic molecule the meteorite may contain.

In a paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (doi:10.1073/pnas.0912157107 – not yet posted online), they say they found 14,000 distinct molecular compositions in the rock extracts, which might mean millions of chemical compounds exist in the meterorite.

What does this diversity mean? Right now, it’s not incredibly informative in itself – just demonstrating that a lot of complex chemistry has been going on in this meteorite (which is, after all, billions of years old). “I think that the issue of diversity and complexity in chemistry is something that has been known for a while with meteorites,” astrobiologist Daniel Glavin tells Scientific American. “I don’t think we knew it was this complex, as what they’re showing.”

Still, this ‘holistic treatment’ (as Chemistry World’s story headlines it) has generated an “organic molecular feast” (the BBC’s gluttonous view) which may, in coming years, inform our theories of the chemistry of the early universe.

Image: US DOE/Wikimedia Commons