Outer space is full of mysteries and excitements.
One such interesting fact that caught me by surprise is the comet named Lovejoy.
I mean seriously, why is it called "lovejoy"?
The comet is aptly named as "lovejoy" which releases huge quantities of alcohol and sugar at about 500 bottles of wines every second according to Nicolas Biver of the Paris Observatory, France, lead author of a paper on the discovery published Oct. 23 2015 in Science Advances [1].
So, how did the author identified the composition and what Instrument did they use?
The author identified the presence of 21 different organic molecules in gas from the comet, including ethyl alcohol and glycolaldehyde, a simple sugar[1].
The scientists used the 30-meter (almost 100-foot) diameter radio telescope at Pico Veleta in the Sierra Nevada Mountains of Spain to analyze those frequencies and to determine the comet was partly made up of alcohol and sugar[2].
The Sun’s role in the discovery wasn’t just to warm the surface of the comet enough to make it release clues about its chemical composition. The way sunlight interacts with molecules in the comet’s atmosphere causes them to glow at specific microwave frequencies[3].
Each kind of molecule glows at specific, signature frequencies, allowing the team to identify it with detectors on the telescope. The advanced equipment was capable of analyzing a wide range of frequencies simultaneously, allowing the team to determine the types and amounts of many different molecules in the comet despite a short observation period[1].
For Nerds!!
Results
Fig. 1 Spectra of organics in comet C/2014 Q2 (Lovejoy) [4]
The observations were obtained with the IRAM 30m radio telescope in the 211–272 GHz band between 13 and 25 January 2015. The velocity scale is in the nucleus rest frame. Intensity is given in the main beam temperature scale. Spectra, from top left, are glycolaldehyde (CH2OHCHO, average of two lines), ethyl alcohol (ethanol, C2H5OH, average of 13 lines), aGg′ ethylene glycol [(CH2OH)2, average of 14 lines], methyl formate (HCOOCH3, average of two groups of blends of several lines, whose positions are marked by blue arrows), formic acid (HCOOH, average of six lines), acetaldehyde (CH3CHO, average of 40 lines), isocyanic acid [HNCO(110,11–100,10) line at 241.774 GHz], and formamide (NH2CHO, average of 10 lines). The signal-to-noise ratio is 6 for glycolaldehyde, 10 for ethanol, and higher than 7 for the other molecules
So, who knows , one day our civilization may stop to comet lovejoy for happy hours time.
Thanks for your time!
Sources :
nasa
edition.cnn
sciencealert
advances.sciencemag.org
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