Abstract

We discuss a wide range of data emerging from the Rosetta Mission that all point indirectly to biological activity in Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko. The existence of cracks and fissures on a smooth surface terrain apparently resealed, as well as early outgassing activity are consistent with the existence of subsurface lakes in which biological activity builds up high pressures of volatile gases that sporadically ruptures a frozen icy crust. While microorganisms probably require liquid water bodies for their early colonising of a comet, they can inhabit cracks in ice and sub-crustal snow, especially if they contain antifreeze salts and biopolymers. Some organisms metabolise at temperatures as low as 230 K, explaining the coma of Comet 97P out at 3.9AU and our prediction is that they would become increasingly active in the near-surface layers as the comet approaches its 1.3 AU perihelion. The detection of an overwhelming abundance of complex organic molecules at the surface by Philae and through IR imaging by the Rosetta orbiter is most significant.

Highlights

  • We discuss a wide range of data emerging from the Rosetta Mission that all point indirectly to biological activity in Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko

  • In this communication we show that indications of biological activity are already available from early results of the Rosetta mission

  • Chemoautotrophic microorganisms released from the ice into such ‘lakes’ laden with high-grade organics could undergo enough doublings to exhaust available nutrients within the observed eruption times of a couple of days. (Heat loss from the surface would lead to full re-freezing, but only over a longer timescale of ~1 yr.) An initial melt of 104 t (10 m deep, 20 m radius) would be extended by the heat released through biochemical transformations

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Summary

Journal of Outreach

Wickramasinghe NC1,2,3*, Wainwright M4, Smith WE2, Tokoro G2, Al Mufti S1 and Wallis MK1

Introduction
Activity of comets at perihelion distances much greater than
Eruptive activity
Extremophiles and Comets
Whilst the known list of culturable microbial species on the Earth
Rosetta and Organic Materials
In this connection perhaps the most interesting results in the Rosetta
Concluding Remarks
Full Text
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