Scientists say the Philae space probe has gathered data supporting the theory that comets can serve as cosmic laboratories in which some of the essential elements for life are assembled.
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The European Space Agency’s probe Philae has been struggling to solidify communication since its launch, but a recent discovery is proving these difficulties more than worth it. Philae found several organic molecules on a comet nicknamed “Chury”.
Unexpectedly, the probe did its sniffing while it was in flight again above the comet, because the harpoons had failed to fire to anchor it to the surface.
Researchers published the findings derived after analyzing the Philae data in an article published Thursday in the journal Science.
The COSAC team found at least 16 organic compounds, four of which were not known to exist on comets before this discovery.
“Importantly, some of these compounds detected by Ptolemy and COSAC play a key role in the prebiotic synthesis of amino acids, sugars and nucleobases: the ingredients for life”.
The Philae lander also detected gases similar to those found here on Earth such as water vapour, carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide.
“The existence of such complex molecules in a comet, a relic of the early Solar System, imply that chemical processes at work during that time could have played a key role in fostering the formation of prebiotic material”, the ESA report stated.
Still the outer surface is pretty diverse and these new images show many different carbon-containing organic molecules.
Proteins, fundamental to living organisms, are made from long chains of amino acids, and the simplest one, glycine, was detected in material collected from the tail of another comet by NASA’s Stardust mission a few years ago.
The comet’s surface at both the initial and final sites of touchdown, dubbed Agilkia and Abydos, are quite different. Another experiment, CONSERT, used instruments on Rosetta and Philae to beam radio waves through the comet’s nucleus, revealing that its smaller lobe is a fairly homogeneous mix of loosely compacted dust and ice.
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“Taken together, these first pioneering measurements performed on the surface of a comet are profoundly changing our view of these worlds and continuing to shape our impression of the history of the Solar System”, says Jean-Pierre Bibring, a lead lander scientist.
