

Philae lander finds complex organic molecules like acetone on comet - ctoth
http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/philae-lander-finds-complex-organic-molecules-like-acetone-on-comet-1.3174326

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porsupah
It would seem this publication in Science pertains to the original science
suite performed on Philae's landing:

[http://blogs.esa.int/rosetta/2015/07/30/science-on-the-
surfa...](http://blogs.esa.int/rosetta/2015/07/30/science-on-the-surface-of-a-
comet/)

Which is not to detract from the magnificence of the accomplishment, simply to
note that this isn't from Philae's recent reawakening.

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userbinator
There's also a rather more mundane possibility: it could be residue from some
sort of cleaning process done when the spacecraft was still on Earth. It
wouldn't be the first time that has happened.

~~~
kazinator
It's hard to imagine how an acetone spill on the craft exterior (or even
interior) would survive the launch.

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jcr
The following is some related reading on "Tholins" along with the history of
the term. The CBC.ca article is sparse on details, and it seems the "
_Science_ " paper is paywalled.

[http://www.planetary.org/blogs/guest-blogs/2015/0722-what-
in...](http://www.planetary.org/blogs/guest-blogs/2015/0722-what-in-the-
worlds-are-tholins.html)

~~~
pmalynin
[http://sci-hub.org/downloads/4ac7/10.1126@science.aab0689.pd...](http://sci-
hub.org/downloads/4ac7/10.1126@science.aab0689.pdf)

~~~
throwaway_yy2Di
That's the one! Thank you!

(And shame on you, silly ESA, for allowing your publicly-funded science to be
locked away by a third party).

There's some fascinating, very suggestive CNOH compounds in that list. Here's
what the last paragraph says about them:

    
    
        CH2OHCHO [glycolaldehyde] is an efficient initiator in the prebiotic formation
        of sugars (21). HCN [hydrogen cyanide] is a key molecule in the prebiotic
        synthesis of amino acids (21, 22) and nucleobases (21) and even offers an
        elegant pathway to sugars (23). HCONH2 [formamide] provides a prebiotic route to
        nucleobases (24). HCONH2 (24) and CH3CONH2 [acetamide] (21) catalyze
        phosphorylation of nucleosides to nucleotides, in which amines also play a role
        (21). Isocyanates play a major role in the prebiotic synthesis of peptides,
        through the so-called isocyanate route (22). The complexity of cometary nucleus
        chemistry and the importance of N-containing organics imply that early solar
        system chemistry fosters the formation of prebiotic material in noticeable
        concentrations.

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sidcool
This is amazing discovery. By this we can say that organic molecules might not
be a rare phenomenon in the universe and hence the chances of life
increases...

~~~
TheSpiceIsLife
What gets me is that we're taught Earth's fossil fuels are just that:
biological fossils. And yet Titan has methane lakes, and we've discovered
giant clouds of methanol in space.[1]

Boy am I confused.

1\. [http://phys.org/news/2006-04-astronomers-alcohol-cloud-
spann...](http://phys.org/news/2006-04-astronomers-alcohol-cloud-spanning-
billion.html)

~~~
GFK_of_xmaspast
There's a tiny little bit of difference between methane and methanol and "all
that shit in crude oil and coal".

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SCAQTony
Acetone is an organic compound. Either somebody up there was distilling
whiskey or biosynthesis was taking place wherever this slush came from right?.

~~~
throwaway_yy2Di
This is from the paper,

    
    
        All the COSAC organics can be formed by UV irradiation and/or radiolysis of ices
        due to the incidence of galactic and solar cosmic rays: alcohols and carbonyls
        derived from CO and H2O ices (19), and amines and nitriles from CH4 and NH3 ices
        (20). Hydrolysis of nitriles produces amides, which are linked to isocyanates by
        isomerization.
    

"Organic" only means "made of C,H,O,N", and doesn't imply biology. (But these
are actually pre-biotic chemicals, which is why it's very interesting).

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Osmium
Could we please have a veto in the popular press on the use of the word
"organic" to describe carbon-containing molecules?

I'm pretty sure "organic" has an entirely different meaning to most of the
population, and it's not helping anyone...

~~~
bonzini
I'm sure organic chemistry was named before organic food...

In fact, organic food is known in some other countries as "from biological
agriculture" (often abbreviated to "bio food").

~~~
Osmium
This isn't a question of who's technically "right" or "wrong". I'm not
suggesting we stop using the word in textbooks or the classroom. It's just
simply, by modern popular usage, misleading to use the word "organic" in
mainstream news articles about carbon-containing molecules. It gives people
the wrong idea.

~~~
Zogulous
Changing what something has been called for a long time because the word has
(relatively) recently been coopted to mean something else sounds like a really
bad idea to me.

~~~
Osmium
> Changing what something has been called for a long time because the word has
> (relatively) recently been coopted to mean something else sounds like a
> really bad idea to me.

It's how language change works though. Very few words still mean what they
meant several hundred (or even tens of) years ago. The people who write
dictionaries are perfectly pragmatic about this. What is the aim of journalism
on a mainstream news website? To communicate? If you want to communicate with
someone who doesn't have a science background, a member of the public, you
have to be sensible about it.

So what's the alternative to "organic" in that context? "Carbon-containing"?
The latter is far less misleading to the average person. And to people who
understand both, either works. So why wouldn't you want to do that?

It's pure stubbornness on behalf of scientists (and I say that as a
professional scientist myself) to be prescriptivist about this sort of thing.
And, again, I'm not suggesting we stop using the word in technical contexts
(the classroom, textbooks, journals, etc.). It's just that I've been at a few
outreach events recently, and I talk to people casually a lot, and _so many_
people read "organic" in a headline and think "signs of life" that it's
obscene. It's a real problem. We can either choose to try and communicate
better, or we can carry on misleading people–because _we are_ misleading them,
whether we like it or not. Burying our heads in the sand and just pretending
otherwise doesn't help anyone.

