Some famous carbonaceous chondrites are: Allende, Murchison, Orgueil, Ivuna, Murray, Tagish Lake, Sutter's Mill and Winchcombe.

[5] Another carbonaceous chondrite, the Flensburg meteorite (2019), provides evidence of the earliest known occurrence of liquid water in the young Solar System to date.

[citation needed] CI chondrites typically contain a high proportion of water (up to 22%),[8] and organic matter in the form of amino acids[9] and PAHs.

[10] Aqueous alteration promotes a composition of hydrous phyllosilicates, magnetite, and olivine crystals occurring in a black matrix, and a possible lack of chondrules.

In general, the extreme fragility of CI chondrites causes them to be highly susceptible to terrestrial weathering, and they do not survive on Earth's surface for long after they fall.

CV chondrites observed falls: The group takes its name from Mighei (Ukraine), but the most famous member is the extensively studied Murchison meteorite.

Many falls of this type have been observed and CM chondrites are known to contain a rich mix of complex organic compounds such as amino-acids and purine/pyrimidine nucleobases.

Amino acids in carbonaceous chondrites have important implications for theories describing the delivery of organic compounds to the early Earth and the subsequent development of life.

[22] In contrast with terrestrial biology, early laboratory studies, including the famous Miller-Urey Experiment, have shown that amino acids may form under a range of possible abiotic conditions with equal (racemic) mixtures of D- and L-enantiomers.

[19] This is consistent with proposed sythetic pathways, as the formation of isovaline and other α-dialkyl amino acids in CM chondrites has been attributed to the Strecker synthesis which produces racemic mixtures of enantiomers.

[25] Their extraterrestrial origin is indicated by their absence in biological systems and significant heavy isotope enrichments in 13C and deuterium compared to terrestrial values.

[28] The ungrouped C2 chondrite Tagish Lake has L-aspartic acid excesses up to ~60%, with carbon isotope measurements indicating an extraterrestrial origin due to significant enrichments in 13C.

[29] It has been proposed that extraterrestrial amino acid L-excesses observed in carbonaceous chondrites are a result of differences in the crystallization behaviour of the enantiomers.

[30] Circularly polarized ultraviolet light has been shown to generate L-excesses in crystallizing amino acids for experimental conditions mimicking alteration on asteroids, and this is thought to be the dominant extraterrestrial source of chiral symmetry breaking (i.e., the favouring of one enantiomer over another).

NASA have proposed a “Ladder of Life Detection” threshold of >20% enantiomeric excess in amino acids to distinguish extraterrestrial biosignatures.

But, as previously mentioned, recent studies of carbonaceous chondrites and complementary experimental investigations have demonstrated that even larger enantiomeric excesses may be produced by abiotic pathways.