This should surprise nobody, but probably will surprise some people anyway:
The probe that landed on the surface of a comet has discovered organic molecules, the most rudimentary building blocks of life, according to the German agency involved in the mission.
An instrument aboard the Philae lander detected the molecules after “sniffing” the comet’s atmosphere. An organic compound is one whose molecules contain the carbon atom, the basis of life on earth.
Scientists are analyzing the data to see whether the organic compounds detected by Philae are simple ones—such as methane and methanol—or a more complex species such as amino acids, the building blocks for proteins.
The idea that comets could have organic compounds has been bandied about for decades; but this is the first time that we’ve ever been able to take samples from one. Finding even the presence of simple compounds is exciting*. Finding amino acids would cause space scientists all over the planet to go dizzy from all the spinning and shouting WHEE! Finding anything more… well, don’t get your hopes up.
Via Hot Air Headlines.
Moe Lane
*Things can be exciting even when they’re not a surprise.
Certainly, things can be exciting without being surprising. Mrs. Cat will get an iPhone 6 before the end of the year, she knows it, I know it, we just haven’t figured out when we’re spending the money, and then .. she will be excited.
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I will be making do with my older phone for a while longer because it still works well enough for my purposes.
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Mew
Just so long as they don’t find any silicon based viruses that can propagate by means of radio waves, that’s what took out the Traveller universe.
What would be even more exciting would be if that had amino acids with the same chirality as ours.
Since I can only see the first few lines, not being a paid subscriber to the WSJ, tell me, did they cover the most important thing? How was the fashion sense of the people who announced this?
Ah crap. That means climate change is worse than we were told. It’s spreading to comets now!