An international team of scientists has discovered large amounts of alcohol and a type of sugar being released into space by comet Lovejoy.
The researchers, who published their findings on October 23 in the journal Science Advances, found that the seemingly appropriately named comet was releasing as much alcohol per second, during peak activity, as what one might find in over 500 bottles of wine.
Iterating this surplus of booze being released into space, the paper’s lead author, Nicolas Biver with the Paris Observatory in France, stated that the team “found that comet Lovejoy was releasing as much alcohol as in at least 500 bottles of wine every second during its peak activity.”
We found that comet Lovejoy was releasing as much alcohol as in at least 500 bottles of wine every second during its peak activity
Lovejoy, which is formally cataloged as C/2014 Q2, was previously observed releasing 20 tons of water per second while it passed by its closest point to our Sun back on January 30, 2015.
Stefanie Milam with NASA’s Goddard Space Fight Center in Maryland, one of the paper’s co-authors, was quoted by EurekAlert in a public release as having said that the recently reported finding “definitely promotes the idea the comets carry very complex chemistry.”
The result definitely promotes the idea the comets carry very complex chemistry (…) During the Late Heavy Bombardment about 3.8 billion years ago, when many comets and asteroids were blasting into Earth and we were getting our first oceans, life didn’t have to start with just simple molecules like water, carbon monoxide, and nitrogen. Instead, life had something that was much more sophisticated on a molecular level. We’re finding molecules with multiple carbon atoms. So now you can see where sugars start forming, as well as more complex organics such as amino acids — the building blocks of proteins — or nucleobases, the building blocks of DNA. These can start forming much easier than beginning with molecules with only two or three atoms.
Back in July of this year, reports surfaced indicating that the European Space Agency’s Philae lander had discovered a “frozen primordial soup” on the Comet Churyumov-Gerasimneko 67P.
What are your thoughts on Lovejoy’s recently discovered alcohol and sugar — ready to party in space?
