Comet Lovejoy Releasing Alcohol and Sugar Into Space
Posted on October 26, 2015
NASA researchers have discovered the the Comet Lovejoy (C/2014 Q2) is releasing large amounts of alcohol as well as some sugar (glycolaldehyde) into space. The alcohol being released is ethyl alcohol. This is the first time the release of ethyl alcohol has been observed in a comet.
Nicolas Biver of the Paris Observatory is the lead author of the study. Biver says in a statement, "We found that comet Lovejoy was releasing as much alcohol as in at least 500 bottles of wine every second during its peak activity."
The NASA researchers say the discovery adds to evidence that comets could have been a source of the complex organic molecules necessary for the emergence of life. The research team found 21 different organic molecules in gas from the comet.
Comet Lovejoy passed closest to the sun on January 30, 2015. At the time it was releasing water at the rate of 20 tons per second. Researchers used the 30-meter diameter radio telescope at Pico Veleta in the Sierra Nevada Mountains of Spain to study the microwave glow from the comet. Each molecule glows at specific frequencies after being energized by sunlight. The researchers were able to identify molecules in the comet by analyzing these frequencies.
Stefanie Milam of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center says in a statement, "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."
A research paper on the study was published here in the journal, Science Advances.