Since Rosetta's August rendezvous with comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko two mass spectrometers on board have been busy analyzing gas being emitted by the comet. At the comet's distance from the sun, currently over 450 million km, it was expected that only the most volatile molecules would be sublimating from the comet, however there is a lot more being detected.
In addition to the volatile carbon monoxide (CO) and carbon dioxide (CO2) expected, by September they had also detected water (H2O), ammonia (NH3), methane (CH4), and methanol (CH3OH). More recently they have added to that list with detections of formaldehyde (CH2O), hydrogen sulphide (H2S), hydrogen cyanide (HCN), sulphur dioxide (SO2), and carbon disulphide (CS2).
As the article states: "If you could smell the comet, you would probably wish that you hadn’t". "The goal is to gain insights into the fundamental chemical make-up of the solar nebula from which our Solar System and, ultimately, life itself emerged." In recent days the jets of gas and dust have picked up in activity; fortunately, the planned landing site on the "head" of the comet still looks fairly quiet.
(Score: 2) by fliptop on Tuesday October 28 2014, @02:20PM
I especially liked this comment:
I never really thought about comets that way.
Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Blackmoore on Tuesday October 28 2014, @03:30PM
but.. trashcans are smelly because organic matter is breaking down, and releasing these types of molecules. (depending on what it was in the refuse)
what is fantastic to see here is the existence of formaldehyde (CH2O), hydrogen sulphide (H2S), hydrogen cyanide (HCN), sulphur dioxide (SO2), and carbon disulphide (CS2).
it adds more legitimacy to the idea that organic molecules will form on their own and eventually become the complex proteins and RNA structures. (provided the right environment)
(Score: 2) by tathra on Tuesday October 28 2014, @04:27PM
amino acids have already been found on extra-terrestial objects [newscientist.com], as have dna nucleobase precursors [nrao.edu]. pseudo-panspermia [wikipedia.org], or something close to it, is practically a fact these days.
since all life on earth uses left-handed amino acids and thus right-handed sugars, its possible that even with pseudo-panspermia we may not be able to exchange food with extraterrestrials (if they use right-handed amino acids and thus left-handed sugars) - which would mean they couldn't eat us too - but if that preference comes from space [realclearscience.com] then first contact could indeed lead to extinction.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 28 2014, @04:37PM
which would mean they couldn't eat us too
Sure they could eat us, we just wouldn't give them any sustenance.
Humans, the deliciously crunchy diet food!
(Score: 2) by tathra on Tuesday October 28 2014, @04:46PM
true, i didn't even think of that. the idea that somebody would eat a food which gives no sustenance is completely alien, but we could still act as vitamin pills. there's much better alternatives though; i dont want my vitamins to bleed and scream, but that could be a requirement for some aliens.
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Tuesday October 28 2014, @06:06PM
Bring me the human horn!
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 2) by DECbot on Tuesday October 28 2014, @11:14PM
Now Vordf, don't play with your food. It'll be hard to eat later, especially if you let it spoil.
cats~$ sudo chown -R us /home/base
(Score: 2) by DrMag on Tuesday October 28 2014, @05:45PM
Does anyone have enough familiarity with the mission to know why they didn't list water as one of the expected things to detect? If someone asked me to list compounds I would expect to see around a comet, water would be one of the first to come to my mind. Just curious if it's a detector issue, or if there's some other reason why CO and CO2 were the ones listed as 'expected'.
(Score: 2) by Alfred on Tuesday October 28 2014, @06:13PM
Water is just water, CO and CO2 are like greenhouse gases and we need to protect comets from global warming. Comets will be part of the next Al Gore movie. Comets wouldn't have it so bad if we weren't beating up the earth so much.
Or something like that. /sarc
(Score: 2) by gman003 on Tuesday October 28 2014, @06:38PM
They expected ice, not water vapor. At that distance from the sun, it was thought to remain solid, only sublimating as it gets closer to the sun.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 28 2014, @06:45PM
My guess is that they do expect water, just not at the current location. They would expect it as it gets closer to the sun and the temperature goes up more, enough to melt/boil water into gas from ice.
(Score: 2) by richtopia on Tuesday October 28 2014, @06:48PM
I'm not too familiar with the probe. Does anyone know what method is used for detecting this wide array of molecules?
(Score: 2) by dx3bydt3 on Wednesday October 29 2014, @01:13AM
The molecules are detected using a mass spectrometer [wikipedia.org], one of several instruments described here. [esa.int]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 29 2014, @02:27PM
From FTS: