According to scientists, the Rosetta spacecraft has found organic compounds that demonstrate how life came to Earth on a comet.The Philae module that landed on comet 67P has registered data that reinforce the theory that these celestial bodies are in fact cosmic laboratories that assemble essential elements for life.
After its successful and historical landing on comet 67p in november 2014, the Philae module was able to collect samples of organic compounds according to a report of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).
- The July 20, 2015 photo released by the European Space Agency ESA on Tuesday, July 28, 2015 shows an image of the comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko with its coma taken by the Navcam camera of the Rosetta orbiter from a distance of 171km (106 miles) from the comet center. (AP Photo/ESA/Rosetta/Navcam)
‘It seems that comets are pretty good places to find the building blocks of molecules which later on could be used for life.’ – Mark McCaughrean, European Space Agency
The recorded data supports the theoretical assumption that comets could be true cosmic laboratories, assembling the necessary elements for life as we know it.
Surprisingly, just 25 minutes after landing on the comet, the Philae spectrometer aboard the module had registered the presence of 13 organic compounds, some of them with nitrogen, which are believed to be precursors of life, since these are involved in the formation of essential amino acids, or nucleobases.
“Comets are loaded with all the raw materials like water, CO2, methane, ammonia, needed to assemble more complex organic molecules, perhaps sparked by UV-photons from the Sun or cosmic rays, or in the shock that occurs when a comet hits the surface of a planet like the young Earth,” said Mark McCaughrean, a senior scientific adviser at the European Space Agency.
In the article published in the journal Science, scientists admitted that it is still not known whether these complex modules, found on the comet were formed in the early solar system or later on.
Still this discovery comes as a surprise to many which believed that the necessary elements for life could not be found in a harsh environment such as the surface of a comet.
“We have definitely learned at least one thing with this first comet landing: Bouncing is a bigger problem than a possible sinking into the ground,” said Philae project manager Stephan Ulamec.
Even though the Philae module woke up from hibernation “unexpectedly” last month, researchers have not been able to re-establish a connection to the module which, responsible for making a groundbreaking discovery, which could provide a lot of information on life in our solar system.
If comets are able to act as “messengers” throughout the solar system, the most important question we can ask is, if these comets could have brought the necessary elements for life on other planets and moons in our solar system. Scientists have speculated for a long time that life could have developed on moons such as Europa and Enceladus.
