5 ms·

Philae lander finds complex organic molecules like acetone on comet

60 points by ctoth 11y ago

jcr 11y ago
The following is some related reading on "Tholins" along with the history of the term. The CBC.ca article is sparse on details, and it seems the "Science" paper is paywalled. http://www.planetary.org/blogs/guest-blogs/2015/0722-what-in-the-worlds-are-tholins.html http://www.planetary.org/blogs/guest-blogs/2015/0722-what-in...
- pmalynin 11y ago
  http://sci-hub.org/downloads/4ac7/10.1126@science.aab0689.pdf http://sci-hub.org/downloads/4ac7/10.1126@science.aab0689.pd...
  - throwaway_yy2Di 11y ago
    That's the one! Thank you! (And shame on you, silly ESA, for allowing your publicly-funded science to be locked away by a third party). There's some fascinating, very suggestive CNOH compounds in that list. Here's what the last paragraph says about them: CH2OHCHO [glycolaldehyde] is an efficient initiator in the prebiotic formation of sugars (21). HCN [hydrogen cyanide] is a key molecule in the prebiotic synthesis of amino acids (21, 22) and nucleobases (21) and even offers an elegant pathway to sugars (23). HCONH2 [formamide] provides a prebiotic route to nucleobases (24). HCONH2 (24) and CH3CONH2 [acetamide] (21) catalyze phosphorylation of nucleosides to nucleotides, in which amines also play a role (21). Isocyanates play a major role in the prebiotic synthesis of peptides, through the so-called isocyanate route (22). The complexity of cometary nucleus chemistry and the importance of N-containing organics imply that early solar system chemistry fosters the formation of prebiotic material in noticeable concentrations.
porsupah 11y ago
It would seem this publication in Science pertains to the original science suite performed on Philae's landing: http://blogs.esa.int/rosetta/2015/07/30/science-on-the-surface-of-a-comet/ http://blogs.esa.int/rosetta/2015/07/30/science-on-the-surfa... Which is not to detract from the magnificence of the accomplishment, simply to note that this isn't from Philae's recent reawakening.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
SCAQTony 11y ago
Acetone is an organic compound. Either somebody up there was distilling whiskey or biosynthesis was taking place wherever this slush came from right?.
- flyinghamster 11y ago
  Not necessarily. In chemistry, an organic compound is (with certain notable exceptions) any compound that contains carbon. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organic_compound https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organic_compound
- drallison 11y ago
  Acetone (systematically named propanone) is the organic compound with the formula (CH₃)₂CO. It is a colorless, volatile, flammable liquid, and is the simplest ketone. Wikipedia What were the "complex organic molecules" that were observed.
- throwaway_yy2Di 11y ago
  This is from the paper, All the COSAC organics can be formed by UV irradiation and/or radiolysis of ices due to the incidence of galactic and solar cosmic rays: alcohols and carbonyls derived from CO and H2O ices (19), and amines and nitriles from CH4 and NH3 ices (20). Hydrolysis of nitriles produces amides, which are linked to isocyanates by isomerization. "Organic" only means "made of C,H,O,N", and doesn't imply biology. (But these are actually pre-biotic chemicals, which is why it's very interesting).
userbinator 11y ago
There's also a rather more mundane possibility: it could be residue from some sort of cleaning process done when the spacecraft was still on Earth. It wouldn't be the first time that has happened.
- kazinator 11y ago
  It's hard to imagine how an acetone spill on the craft exterior (or even interior) would survive the launch.
sidcool 11y ago
This is amazing discovery. By this we can say that organic molecules might not be a rare phenomenon in the universe and hence the chances of life increases...
- elorant 11y ago
  And with that, the chances that the Great Filter exists in our future also increase. Until we find the little green men out there we’ll always have to contemplate with the idea that for some reason life isn’t meant to evolve past a certain point.
- TheSpiceIsLife 11y ago
  What gets me is that we're taught Earth's fossil fuels are just that: biological fossils. And yet Titan has methane lakes, and we've discovered giant clouds of methanol in space.[1] Boy am I confused. 1. http://phys.org/news/2006-04-astronomers-alcohol-cloud-spanning-billion.html http://phys.org/news/2006-04-astronomers-alcohol-cloud-spann...
  - GFK_of_xmaspast 11y ago
    There's a tiny little bit of difference between methane and methanol and "all that shit in crude oil and coal".
Osmium 11y ago
Could we please have a veto in the popular press on the use of the word "organic" to describe carbon-containing molecules? I'm pretty sure "organic" has an entirely different meaning to most of the population, and it's not helping anyone...
- bonzini 11y ago
  I'm sure organic chemistry was named before organic food... In fact, organic food is known in some other countries as "from biological agriculture" (often abbreviated to "bio food").
  - mc808 11y ago
    But that further supports the idea that people generally link "organic" to "biological". Note they're not calling it "carbon-containing food".
  - Osmium 11y ago
    This isn't a question of who's technically "right" or "wrong". I'm not suggesting we stop using the word in textbooks or the classroom. It's just simply, by modern popular usage, misleading to use the word "organic" in mainstream news articles about carbon-containing molecules. It gives people the wrong idea.
    - Zogulous 11y ago
      Changing what something has been called for a long time because the word has (relatively) recently been coopted to mean something else sounds like a really bad idea to me.
      - Osmium 11y ago
        > Changing what something has been called for a long time because the word has (relatively) recently been coopted to mean something else sounds like a really bad idea to me. It's how language change works though. Very few words still mean what they meant several hundred (or even tens of) years ago. The people who write dictionaries are perfectly pragmatic about this. What is the aim of journalism on a mainstream news website? To communicate? If you want to communicate with someone who doesn't have a science background, a member of the public, you have to be sensible about it. So what's the alternative to "organic" in that context? "Carbon-containing"? The latter is far less misleading to the average person. And to people who understand both, either works. So why wouldn't you want to do that? It's pure stubbornness on behalf of scientists (and I say that as a professional scientist myself) to be prescriptivist about this sort of thing. And, again, I'm not suggesting we stop using the word in technical contexts (the classroom, textbooks, journals, etc.). It's just that I've been at a few outreach events recently, and I talk to people casually a lot, and so many people read "organic" in a headline and think "signs of life" that it's obscene. It's a real problem. We can either choose to try and communicate better, or we can carry on misleading people–because we are misleading them, whether we like it or not. Burying our heads in the sand and just pretending otherwise doesn't help anyone.

60 points by ctoth 11y ago

jcr 11y ago

The following is some related reading on "Tholins" along with the history of the term. The CBC.ca article is sparse on details, and it seems the "Science" paper is paywalled. http://www.planetary.org/blogs/guest-blogs/2015/0722-what-in-the-worlds-are-tholins.html http://www.planetary.org/blogs/guest-blogs/2015/0722-what-in...

pmalynin 11y ago
http://sci-hub.org/downloads/4ac7/10.1126@science.aab0689.pdf http://sci-hub.org/downloads/4ac7/10.1126@science.aab0689.pd...
- throwaway_yy2Di 11y ago
  That's the one! Thank you! (And shame on you, silly ESA, for allowing your publicly-funded science to be locked away by a third party). There's some fascinating, very suggestive CNOH compounds in that list. Here's what the last paragraph says about them: CH2OHCHO [glycolaldehyde] is an efficient initiator in the prebiotic formation of sugars (21). HCN [hydrogen cyanide] is a key molecule in the prebiotic synthesis of amino acids (21, 22) and nucleobases (21) and even offers an elegant pathway to sugars (23). HCONH2 [formamide] provides a prebiotic route to nucleobases (24). HCONH2 (24) and CH3CONH2 [acetamide] (21) catalyze phosphorylation of nucleosides to nucleotides, in which amines also play a role (21). Isocyanates play a major role in the prebiotic synthesis of peptides, through the so-called isocyanate route (22). The complexity of cometary nucleus chemistry and the importance of N-containing organics imply that early solar system chemistry fosters the formation of prebiotic material in noticeable concentrations.

porsupah 11y ago

It would seem this publication in Science pertains to the original science suite performed on Philae's landing: http://blogs.esa.int/rosetta/2015/07/30/science-on-the-surface-of-a-comet/ http://blogs.esa.int/rosetta/2015/07/30/science-on-the-surfa... Which is not to detract from the magnificence of the accomplishment, simply to note that this isn't from Philae's recent reawakening.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

SCAQTony 11y ago

Acetone is an organic compound. Either somebody up there was distilling whiskey or biosynthesis was taking place wherever this slush came from right?.

flyinghamster 11y ago
Not necessarily. In chemistry, an organic compound is (with certain notable exceptions) any compound that contains carbon. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organic_compound https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organic_compound
drallison 11y ago
Acetone (systematically named propanone) is the organic compound with the formula (CH₃)₂CO. It is a colorless, volatile, flammable liquid, and is the simplest ketone. Wikipedia What were the "complex organic molecules" that were observed.
throwaway_yy2Di 11y ago
This is from the paper, All the COSAC organics can be formed by UV irradiation and/or radiolysis of ices due to the incidence of galactic and solar cosmic rays: alcohols and carbonyls derived from CO and H2O ices (19), and amines and nitriles from CH4 and NH3 ices (20). Hydrolysis of nitriles produces amides, which are linked to isocyanates by isomerization. "Organic" only means "made of C,H,O,N", and doesn't imply biology. (But these are actually pre-biotic chemicals, which is why it's very interesting).

userbinator 11y ago

There's also a rather more mundane possibility: it could be residue from some sort of cleaning process done when the spacecraft was still on Earth. It wouldn't be the first time that has happened.

kazinator 11y ago
It's hard to imagine how an acetone spill on the craft exterior (or even interior) would survive the launch.

sidcool 11y ago

This is amazing discovery. By this we can say that organic molecules might not be a rare phenomenon in the universe and hence the chances of life increases...

elorant 11y ago
And with that, the chances that the Great Filter exists in our future also increase. Until we find the little green men out there we’ll always have to contemplate with the idea that for some reason life isn’t meant to evolve past a certain point.
TheSpiceIsLife 11y ago
What gets me is that we're taught Earth's fossil fuels are just that: biological fossils. And yet Titan has methane lakes, and we've discovered giant clouds of methanol in space.[1] Boy am I confused. 1. http://phys.org/news/2006-04-astronomers-alcohol-cloud-spanning-billion.html http://phys.org/news/2006-04-astronomers-alcohol-cloud-spann...
- GFK_of_xmaspast 11y ago
  There's a tiny little bit of difference between methane and methanol and "all that shit in crude oil and coal".

Osmium 11y ago

Could we please have a veto in the popular press on the use of the word "organic" to describe carbon-containing molecules? I'm pretty sure "organic" has an entirely different meaning to most of the population, and it's not helping anyone...

bonzini 11y ago
I'm sure organic chemistry was named before organic food... In fact, organic food is known in some other countries as "from biological agriculture" (often abbreviated to "bio food").
- mc808 11y ago
  But that further supports the idea that people generally link "organic" to "biological". Note they're not calling it "carbon-containing food".
- Osmium 11y ago
  This isn't a question of who's technically "right" or "wrong". I'm not suggesting we stop using the word in textbooks or the classroom. It's just simply, by modern popular usage, misleading to use the word "organic" in mainstream news articles about carbon-containing molecules. It gives people the wrong idea.
  - Zogulous 11y ago
    Changing what something has been called for a long time because the word has (relatively) recently been coopted to mean something else sounds like a really bad idea to me.
    - Osmium 11y ago
      > Changing what something has been called for a long time because the word has (relatively) recently been coopted to mean something else sounds like a really bad idea to me. It's how language change works though. Very few words still mean what they meant several hundred (or even tens of) years ago. The people who write dictionaries are perfectly pragmatic about this. What is the aim of journalism on a mainstream news website? To communicate? If you want to communicate with someone who doesn't have a science background, a member of the public, you have to be sensible about it. So what's the alternative to "organic" in that context? "Carbon-containing"? The latter is far less misleading to the average person. And to people who understand both, either works. So why wouldn't you want to do that? It's pure stubbornness on behalf of scientists (and I say that as a professional scientist myself) to be prescriptivist about this sort of thing. And, again, I'm not suggesting we stop using the word in technical contexts (the classroom, textbooks, journals, etc.). It's just that I've been at a few outreach events recently, and I talk to people casually a lot, and so many people read "organic" in a headline and think "signs of life" that it's obscene. It's a real problem. We can either choose to try and communicate better, or we can carry on misleading people–because we are misleading them, whether we like it or not. Burying our heads in the sand and just pretending otherwise doesn't help anyone.