An article just published in the journal “Science Advances” describes a research about Comet Lovejoy, cataloged as C/2014 Q2. A team of researchers led by Nicolas Biver at the Observatoire de Meudon, France, analyzed the compounds emitted together with water when the comet passed close to the Sun, on January 30, 2015, and found 21 different organic molecules including ethyl alcohol and glycolaldehyde, a simple sugar.
Nicolas Biver and his team used the 30-meter radio telescope of IRAM (Institut de radioastronomie millimétrique) at Pico Veleta in the Sierra Nevada, Spain. It’s a powerful instrument for millimetric radio astronomy which in this case was used to detect the composition of the thin atmosphere of comet Lovejoy created by the sublimation of water and volatile elements during its passage near the Sun.
The various molecules emitted by comet Lovejoy received energy from the sunlight that at that moment is particularly intense. The consequence is that they shone at specific microwave frequencies and each molecule has a certain “signature” that makes it recognizable at a spectral analysis of the telescope detection.
Through this analysis it was possible to identify 21 different organic molecules such as ethyl alcohol, the one present in our drinks, and glycolaldehyde. This is another confirmation of the fact that on comets there are complex molecules that could have arriving on the early Earth helping to provide the ingredients for the formation of the first life forms. Other organic molecules were discovered by ESA’s lander Philae on the comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko.
Comets carrying materials that have seen little or no change since they were formed at the birth of the solar system. It’s for this reason that their study has become so important and ESA sent the Rosetta space probe to conduct a close study of the comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko.
Comet Lovejoy is one of the brightest and most active comets of recent years so has been the subject of a particularly interesting study, though from afar. The analysis of the data collected by examining this and other comets will continue to try to understand if the organic materials found came from the primordial cloud that formed the solar system or formed later in the protoplanetary disk that surrounded the young Sun.
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