The gas cloud coming out of the comet, contains an average of four molecules of oxygen for every 100 water molecules.
Probably the oxygen for billions of years ago, during the formation of the comet taken from the gas cloud from which our solar system was formed.
This was reported by a team including researchers from the University of Leiden in the journal Nature .
Spectrometer
The researchers analyzed more than three thousand images of the comet 67P / Churyumov-Gerasimenko, which were made between September 2014 and March 2015 by Rosetta.
On the basis of measurements with a spectrometer aboard the spacecraft, scientists have mapped out what substances are in the gas cloud around the comet.
Rosetta was already water vapor, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide and various nitrogen, sulfur and carbon compounds at 67P / Churyumov-Gerasimenko. Oxygen was discovered.
Surprisingly
The discovery of the oxygen molecules is very unexpected. “For me this is the most surprising result of the chemical Rosetta mission so far”, the Leiden researcher explains Ewine of Dishoeckstraat news Astronomie.nl.
“For decades we have looked for interstellar oxygen without much success, and now we find her just in large quantities in a comet.”
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