View of comet 67P taken by Rosetta.
Credit: European Space Agency
Scientists have found that molecular oxygen around comet 67P is not produced on its surface, as some suggested, but may be from its body. The European Space Agency’s Rosetta spacecraft escorted comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko on its journey round the sun from August 2014 – September 2016, dropping a probe and eventually crashing onto its surface.
When the comet is close enough to the sun the ice on its surface ‘sublimes’ – transforms from solid to gas – forming a gas atmosphere called a coma. Analysis of the coma by instruments on Rosetta revealed that it contained not only water, CO and CO2, as anticipated, but also molecular oxygen.
Molecular oxygen is O2, and on Earth it is essential for life, where it is produced by photo...
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