Organic macromolecules detected by Rosetta in Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko

Press release published by The Université Paris-Est Créteil Val de Marne

Observations of the Galactic Centre team at the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics (MPE) have for the first time revealed the effects predicted by Einstein’s general relativity on the motion of a star passing through the extreme gravitational field near the supermassive black hole in the centre of the Milky Way.

An international scientific team bringing together researchers from the Universities of Paris-Est Créteil Val de Marne (UPEC), Orléans, Paris-Sud and Grenoble-Alpes as well as the CNRS have detected high-molecular-weight organic matter in the dust emitted by the comet’s core. Obtained from the COSIMA instrument (Mission Rosetta), these findings have been published in the journal Nature.

Source

High-molecular-weight organic matter in the particles of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, M. Nature, 7 septembre 2016 Fray, N., Bardyn, A., Cottin, H., Altwegg, K., Baklouti, D., Briois, C., Colangeli, L., Engrand, C., Fischer, H., Glasmachers, A., Grün, E., Haerendel, G., Henkel, H., Höfner, H., Hornung, K., Jessberger, E.K., Koch, A., Krüger, H., Langevin, Y., Lehto, H., Lehto, K., Roy, L.L., Merouane, S., Modica, P., Orthous-Daunay, F.-R., Paquette, J., Raulin, F., Rynö, J., Schulz, R., Silén, J., Siljeström, S., Steiger, W., Stenzel, O., Stephan, T., Thirkell, L., Thomas, R., Torkar, K., Varmuza, K., Wanczek, K.-P., Zaprudin, B., Kissel, J. and Hilchenbach.
_ DOI : 10.1038/nature19320