Did our Solar System as violent as we believe? Origin
The Rosetta spacecraft detected molecular oxygen cloud of gas surrounding the comet 67P.
The find took the mission scientists completely by surprise, since the molecule of this gas is so reactive that was thought to have reacted with other elements during the formation of the planets
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The results indicate that current thinking on how the solar system formed could be wrong.
The study was published in Nature .
Oxygen trapped
The scientists used an instrument called Rosina probe to “sniff” the atmosphere surrounding the comet 67P / Churyumov-Gerasimenko for a period of six months.
So found that gas concentration is constant, which means it is present throughout the body, not just on the surface to be shedding materials as it approaches the sun.
Also, the oxygen turned out to be the fourth most common gas around the comet after water vapor, carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide.
At first, the scientists involved in research thought that was a mistake, said Kathrin Altwegg, University of Bern in Switzerland.
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“When we saw the information for the first time, all entered a phase of denial, because that’s not what you expect to find in a comment,” says Altwegg.
This is because oxygen reacts very easily with other elements to form compounds and not maintained in its original form.
The researchers believe that oxygen might have frozen very quickly and then got stuck on pieces of material during the early stages of the formation of the solar system.
“It’s the most surprising discovery (the comet) that have done so far” says Altwegg. “The big question is how he got there.”
lifeless Comet
Many of the current theories of how planets and comets formed around Sun suggest that it was a violent process that would have warmed the frozen oxygen, which in turn would react with other elements.
But this finding suggests that, in fact, the formation of Solar System could have been a peaceful process.
“If we O2 at the beginning of the formation of a comet, how he managed to survive for so long?” says the author of André study Bieler, of the University of Michigan in the United States.
“All the models indicate that it should not have survived for so long, which does not say anything about the formation of our solar system,” he added.
“We now have new evidence that a significant part of this comet survived, in fact, the formation of our solar system.”
However, the presence of oxygen not has made them think about the possibility of finding life on this icy body.
“So far, the combination of oxygen and methane was an indicator that could be life on an exoplanet. In the comet we have two gases, methane and oxygen, but we have no life, so maybe it was not as good as we thought biological signature, “said Altwegg.
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