Life in space: OXYGEN found on barrelling comet - is it a sign of alien life?
The Churyumov–Gerasimenko space rock, dubbed 67P, was found to contain not only water and carbon gases but also oxygen. The startling discovery was made by the instrumentation onboard the European Space Agency’s Rosetta space probe. Molecular oxygen is an essential element of life back on Earth and is metabolised by breathing organisms like animals and humans. The compound is created by photosynthesising plants when two oxygen atoms are bound together.
The presence of molecular oxygen was previously detected around Jupiter’s icy moon Europa but scientists have never expected to find any on a comet. The oxygen is not evidence of alien life outside of Earth but could instead be a “primordial” relic from the infant days of the solar system. The Rosetta scientists initially proposed the oxygen was stored in the comet’s nucleus from the time the solar system was born 4.6 billion years ago. But a group of outside researchers from the California Institute of Technology suggested a different source for the oxygen.
GETTY/ESA/Rosetta/NAVCAM – CC BY-SA IGO 3.0 Life in space: Astronomers found signs of oxygen on the comet 67P
Yunxi Yao and Konstantinos Giapis discovered a way of creating the oxygen compound through the use of charged molecules or ions.
Oxygen in 67P's coma was both very surprising and exciting Kevin Heritier, Imperial College London
When the comet’s orbit passes close enough to the sun, the intense heat from the burning star melts the ice on 67P’s surface. The melting ice then coalesces into a gas atmosphere known as a coma which the Rosetta probe found contained carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide and molecular oxygen. The Rosetta scientists have now revisited the 67P findings in light of the new ion theory.
ESA/Rosetta/NAVCAM, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO; Life in space: The oxygen is likely a remnant of the infant days of the solar system
ESA/Rosetta/NAVCAM – CC BY-SA IGO 3.0 Life in space: Comet 67P orbits the sun every 6.45 years
In a research paper published this week in the journal Nature Communications the scientists challenged the proposed theory. Their study titled “On the origin of molecular oxygen in cometary comae” argued the prosed mechanisms are not sufficient enough to account for the amount of oxygen present. The paper claimed there are simply not enough charged ions in the comet’s coma required to trigger the necessary processes. Lead author Kevin Heritier, Imperial College London, said: “The first detection of molecular oxygen in 67P's coma was both very surprising and exciting. “We tested the new theory of surface molecular oxygen production using observations of energetic ions, particles which trigger the surface processes which could lead to the production of molecular oxygen.
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