Scientists announced Friday that Comet Lovejoy releases massive amounts alcohol and sugar, two complex organic molecules, or building blocks of life, lending credence to the idea that a comet could have seeded life on Earth.
It's the first time anyone has identified ethyl alcohol, the same ingredient used in alcoholic drinks, and the simplest monosaccharide sugar glycolaldehyde in the gas released by a comet, reported AFP.
"We found that comet Lovejoy was releasing as much alcohol as in at least 500 bottles of wine every second during its peak activity," said lead researcher Nicolas Biver of the Paris Observatory. The team published their results Oct. 23 in Science Advances.
In all, researchers said they found 21 different organic molecules in the gas released by the comet.
They were able to identify the molecules when the comet passed close to the sun on Jan. 30, 2015 and began releasing water at the rate of 20 tons per second, according to phys.org. Sunlight energizes the molecules released by the comet, causing them to glow at specific signature microwave frequencies, which scientists observed and analyzed with detectors on a powerful telescope at Pico Veleta in the Sierra Nevada Mountains of Spain.
Comets contain the frozen remains of some of the oldest and most primitive material in the solar system, notes RT.
A popular theory about how life arose on Earth proposes that a comet may have struck the planet in the distant past and seeded it with the molecules necessary for sparking life.
"The result definitely promotes the idea the comets carry very complex chemistry," said co-author Stefanie Milam of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. "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."
Other organic molecules have previously been found in comets, most recently in 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko.
