The Internet is losing its mind this morning over news that the Rosetta Mission's Philae Lander discovered evidence of organic molecules on the surface of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko before its batteries died and the craft went into hibernation.
And although that's promising news, and the evidence of organic compounds may suggest that comets possibly seeded life on Earth, it's still too early to know if this "new" information is relevant.
To start with, we already knew that Comet 67P had traces of organic molecules. The Rosetta spacecraft detected these same molecules, methane and methanol, a few months ago. And, unfortunately, these aren't the specific organic compounds we're looking for that suggest life. It's possible that Philae "sniffed" the same molecules that Rosetta already discovered.
"Organic molecules" sounds like it should mean molecules related to life, but in science, it just means that those molecules contain at least one carbon atom. That's hardly enough for creating life. Also, gases like methane and methanol are common and are the result of chemical reactions. They also aren't indicative of life.
The problem here is that we don't know exactly what organic compounds Comet 67P has and until we have a better idea, we shouldn't get too excited just yet.
Unfortunately, there was also a problem with the comet sample collected by Philae's drill. Although data shows that the drill worked as expected and that a sample ended up in Philae's oven for heating up and analyzing, the data came back with nothing.
However, that's not to say that the Philae Lander's short mission was a failure. Not only did it still make history by making the first landing on a comet, but in less than 24 hours, Philae collected at least 80 percent of its main goal science data.
"We finally have ground truth from a comet," says planetary scientist Bruce Betts. "This was a very hard thing to try to do, and to have achieved getting science data back at all is a success at some level."
There were also some happy accidents. Because of Philae's botched landing (the lander hopped across the surface of the comet several times before landing in the shadow of a cliff), the lander measured the comet's magnetic field from three different sites, giving us a better overall picture of the comet.
Scientists were also surprised when Philae's thermometer couldn't penetrate the comet's icy surface. That showed us that the comet's surface was a harder ice than we previously imagined. That also explains why Philae bounced off the surface the way it did during its landing.
And, of course, we can't count Philae out just yet. Because the Rosetta team managed to rotate the craft's solar panels before its batteries ran out, once the comet gets closer to the sun, the lander may re-awaken and deliver more valuable data about what life is like from the surface of a comet. Rosetta, too, is still orbiting the comet as it gets closer to the sun, continuously collecting data about the comet's activity.
"Let's stop looking at things we could have done if everything had worked properly," says Rosetta flight operations director Andrea Accomazzo. "Let's look at what we have done, what we have achieved. This is unique and will be unique forever."
For those with questions about Philae's data, the European Space Agency (ESA) is holding a special Reddit AMA today at 1 p.m. EST.
[Photo Credit: ESA/Rosetta/Philae/CIVA]
