Philae lander finds organic molecules of Comet 67P

“These ground-truth observations at a couple of locations anchor the extensive remote measurements performed by Rosetta covering the whole comet from above over the last year”, says Nicolas Altobelli, ESA’s acting Rosetta project scientist.

While it’s in no way a piece of slam dunk evidence, the discovery could boost the theory that life on Earth may have originated with a comet strike that delivered a “primordial soup” of compounds in frozen form.

Researchers published the findings derived after analyzing the Philae data in an article published Thursday in the journal Science. Samples of gas and dust kicked up during the landing entered tubes at the bottom of the lander.

Ptolemy studied gases that entered tubes in the top of the lander.

COSAC collected ice-poor dust grains that contained 16 organic compounds, including many rich in carbon and nitrogen compounds. Applying energy to organic compounds such as those found on the comet can lead to the creation of amino acids, which makes up proteins, which are the basis of life itself.

The Philae lander also detected gases similar to those found here on Earth such as water vapour, carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide.

That could be significant, the ESA notes, because formaldehyde can form sugars such as ribose, which in turn can form part of ribonucleic acid, an essential part of creating life.

ESA scientists believe that these existing complex molecules on the comet are the solar system’s relics that suggest that those chemical processes at the time have a pivotal role in the formation of prebiotic material. She is married to Professor Ian Wright, who works with the Ptolemy results at the Open University.

The Philae lander has found organic molecules on Comet 67p/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. And now we have the answer, or at least, an answer: the compounds are a mixture of many different molecules.

Grady concluded: “Most importantly, both of those sets of data show that the ingredients for life were present in a body which formed in the earliest stages of Solar System history”.

When Philae bounced from its initial landing site, designated as Agilkia, it wound up at a different site, designated as Abydos.

“Either way, it seems that comets are pretty good places to find the building blocks of molecules which later on could be used for life”.