WASHINGTON: Scientists have found vast amounts of alcohol flowing from a comet dubbed “Lovejoy” which recently passed close to earth.
The comet, whose official name is C/2014 Q2, is the first one found to contain ethanol and glycolaldehyde (booze and sugar to the layperson), among 19 other organic molecules.
The Paris Observatory’s Nicolas Biver, leading the research, told Phys.org that Lovejoy was spewing the equivalent of 500 bottles of wine into space every second during its peak activity.
Yeah, that’s quite a party.
But Lovejoy really is the life of the party, because this discovery could hold important clues to the origins of life on earth.
“These complex organic molecules may be part of the rocky material from which planets are formed,” the study’s authors said.
Since comets contain some of the oldest and most primitive materials in the solar system, scientists regard them as time capsules, offering a peek into how it all started 4.6 billion years ago.
Some scientists believe comets brought organic molecules to earth, which paved the way for life today.
“The presence of a major complex organic molecule in comet material is an essential step toward better understanding the conditions that prevailed at the moment when life emerged on our planet,” said study co-author Dominique Bockele-Morvan, an astrophysicist at the French National Center for Scientific Research.
