Comet expelling ‘500 bottles of wine’ a second

A comet hurtling through space is releasing alcohol at a rate of “500 bottles of wine a second”, according to Nasa, the first time ethyl alcohol has been discovered in a comet.

The comet, named Lovejoy, is currently releasing large amounts of alcohol as well as a type of sugar into space, according to new observations by Nasa’s international team. The team found 21 different organic molecules in gas from the comet, including ethyl alcohol and glycolaldehyde, a simple sugar, with the discovery adding to the evidence that comets could have been a source of the complex organic molecules necessary for the emergence of life. The comet is estimated to be releasing as much alcohol as in “at least 500 bottles of wine every second during its peak activity”, according to scientists.

“During the Late Heavy Bombardment about 3.8 billion years ago, when many comets and asteroids were blasting into Earth and we were getting our first oceans, life didn’t have to start with just simple molecules like water, carbon monoxide, and nitrogen”, explained Stefanie Milam of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “Instead, life had something that was much more sophisticated on a molecular level. We’re finding molecules with multiple carbon atoms. So now you can see where sugars start forming, as well as more complex organics such as amino acids — the building blocks of proteins — or nucleobases, the building blocks of DNA. These can start forming much easier than beginning with molecules with only two or three atoms.”

Some researchers believe that comet impacts on ancient Earth delivered a supply of organic molecules that could have sparked life, with the discovery of complex organic molecules in Lovejoy and other comets supporting this theory.

“The next step is to see if the organic material being found in comets came from the primordial cloud that formed the solar system or if it was created later on, inside the protoplanetary disk that surrounded the young sun,” said Dominique Bockelée-Morvan from Paris Observatory, a co-author of the paper.

Lovejoy is one of the brightest and most active comets to come relatively close to Earth’s orbit since the passage of Hale-Bopp in 1997. It was when Comet Lovejoy passed closest to the sun on 30 January 2015 that the team at the Paris Observatory were able to identify the organic molecules. To do it they used a 30 metre diameter radio telescope, able to to measure the glow of molecules as they became energised by the sun. As each type of molecule has a specific signature frequency, closely measuring this glow meant they were able to identify the ethyl alcohol.