Evidence of liquid water in comets

Comets contain large amounts of liquid water in the interior for the first 1 million years of the formation process, a new study confirms.

The comet's water environment, along with a large amount of organic matter discovered on comets, can provide ideal conditions for primitive bacteria to grow and proliferate.

This is a topic that Professor Chandra Wickramasinghe and colleagues at the Cardiff Center for Astrobiology in the paper published in the International Journal of Astrobiology.

Comet Hale-Bopp. The comet's water environment, along with a large amount of organic matter discovered on comets, can provide ideal conditions for primitive bacteria to grow and proliferate, experts argue. (Photo: iStockphoto / Kenneth C. Zirkel) The Cardiff team has calculated the thermal history of comets after they formed from interstellar and interplanetary dust about 4.5 billion years ago. The formation of the solar system is also thought to be stimulated by a shockwave emanating from a supernova explosion. The supernova brought radioactive materials such as Aluminum-26 into the solar system in the early period and some merged with comets. Professor Chandra Wickramasinghe and Dr. Janaki Wickramasinghe and Max Wallis claim that the heat emitted from radioactivity warms the frozen materials of comets to create liquid water conditions for 1 million years.

Professor Wickramasinghe said: 'These calculations are more laborious than any previous study, asserting that a large number of our 100 billion comets have an interior in liquid form. in the past'.

'The part just below the surface of the comet can also liquefy when they get close to the solar system in its orbit. The evidence was discovered in photographs of the comet Tempel 1 in the 2005 'Deep Impact' poll. '

The existence of liquid water in comets supports the possibility of a connection between life on Earth and on comets. This hypothesis, called cometary panspermia, was initiated by Chandra Wickramasinghe and then the late scientist Fred Hoyle debated the case of life being brought to Earth by comets.

Refer:

1. JT Wickramasinghe, NC Wickramasinghe and MK Wallis.Liquid and organics in Comets: implications for exobiology.International Journal of Astrobiology, 2009;1 DOI: 10.1017 / S1473550409990127