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The size, size range and complex morphological features and characteristics exhibited by these filaments render them recognizable as representatives of the filamentous Cyanobacteriaceae and associated trichomic prokaryotes commonly encountered in cyanobacterial mats. Therefore, the well-preserved mineralized trichomic filaments with carbonaceous sheaths found embedded in freshly fractured interior surfaces of the Alais, Ivuna, and Orgueil CI1 carbonaceous meteorites are interpreted as the fossilized remains of prokaryotic microorganisms that grew in liquid regimes on the parent body of the meteorites before they entered the Earth’s atmosphere.

Nitrogen is not detected in ancient biological materials such as fossil insects in Miocene Amber (8 Mya); Cambrian Trilobites from the Wheeler Shale (505 Mya) or cyanobacterial filaments from Karelia (2.7 Gya). Consequently the absence of nitrogen in the cyanobacterial filaments detected in the CI1 carbonaceous meteorites indicates that the filaments represent the remains of extraterrestrial life forms that grew on the parent bodies of the meteorites when liquid water was present, long before the meteorites entered the Earth’s atmosphere. This finding has direct implications to the distribution of life in the Cosmos and the possibility of microbial life in liquid water regimes of cometary nuclei as they travel within the orbit of Mars and in icy moons with liquid water oceans such as Europa and Enceladus.

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