An international space probe set to launch Thursday morning won't just take the closest look yet at the core of a comet. It may shed light on the origin of life on Earth.
A series of recent studies have suggested that comets may have brought water and amino acids -- the building blocks of life -- to Earth billions of years ago. But that's all theoretical. Scientists don't yet have direct proof that comets really carry these materials. Only a couple of probes have ever seen comets up close, after all.
Rosetta, the European Space Agency craft scheduled to lift off Thursday from a launching pad in French Guyana, could dramatically augment the available evidence. If it works as planned, Rosetta will be the first probe to land on a comet's surface. The samples it takes from the soil and atmosphere of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko should determine whether these interplanetary streakers contain the chemical precursors to bacteria, plants and people.
My Wired News article has details.
An international space probe set to launch Thursday morning won't just take the closest look yet at the core of a comet. It may shed light on the origin of life on Earth.
A series of recent studies have suggested that comets may have brought water and amino acids -- the building blocks of life -- to Earth billions of years ago. But that's all theoretical. Scientists don't yet have direct proof that comets really carry these materials. Only a couple of probes have ever seen comets up close, after all.
Rosetta, the European Space Agency craft scheduled to lift off Thursday from a launching pad in French Guyana, could dramatically augment the available evidence. If it works as planned, Rosetta will be the first probe to land on a comet's surface. The samples it takes from the soil and atmosphere of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko should determine whether these interplanetary streakers contain the chemical precursors to bacteria, plants and people.
My Wired News article has details.