Humanity’s first comet lander has discovered one of the building blocks of life on a comet more than 300 million miles from Earth.
Last week the European Space Agency’s Philae lander touched down on a comet after a ten year journey through space. Though the lander hit some bumps — literally — causing it to shut down sooner than expected, the probe was able to accomplish much of its mission, including examining the material that makes up the comet. (RELATED: ESA: ‘With Time Running Out, We’re Taking Risks’ With Comet Lander)
Beside the frozen water-ice scientists presupposed makes up the bulk of comet 67P’s mass, a German-made instrument onboard Philae designed to “sniff” the comet’s atmosphere picked up an organic compound containing the carbon atom, The BBC reports.
Carbon is the basis of all life on Earth, and scientists are working to further analyze data from the comet to determine if the compounds are simple — such as methane or methanol — or more complex molecular structures like amino acids, which are essential to forming proteins.
Data obtained by Philae’s drill, which extracted a sample from the surface of 67P before the lander shut down, will also be compared against the German data and analyzed to determine the comet’s makeup.
Philae’s data “will help us to understand whether organic molecules were brought by comets to the early Earth,” Philae lander manager and scientist at the German Aerospace Center Stephan Ulamec said in a Wall Street Journal report.
Comets are billions-year-old collections of ice, dust and gases left over from the creation of planets and stars, and the initial data from Philae marks a huge success for the project’s scientists, who believe examining comets will help unlock the history of the universe.
The lander fell silent late last week after landing in the shadow of a cliff on the surface of the comet, which blocked all but 1.5 hours of the seven Phile’s solar panels needed to keep the probe charged and functioning.