Comet Pond II: Synergistic Intersection of Concentrated Extraterrestrial Materials and Planetary Environments to Form Procreative Darwinian Ponds (original) (raw)

2018, Life (Basel, Switzerland)

In the “comet pond” model, a rare combination of circumstances enables the entry and landing of pristine organic material onto a planetary surface with the creation of a pond by a soft impact and melting of entrained ices. Formation of the constituents of the comet in the cold interstellar medium and our circumstellar disk results in multiple constituents at disequilibrium which undergo rapid chemical reactions in the warmer, liquid environment. The planetary surface also provides minerals and atmospheric gases which chemically interact with the pond’s organic- and trace-element-rich constituents. Pond physical morphology and the heterogeneities imposed by gravitational forces (bottom sludge; surface scum) and weather result in a highly heterogeneous variety of macro- and microenvironments. Wet/dry, freeze/thaw, and natural chromatography processes further promote certain reaction sequences. Evaporation concentrates organics less volatile than water. Freezing conce...

Triple F—a comet nucleus sample return mission

Experimental Astronomy, 2009

Michael Küppers · HU Keller · E. Kührt · MF A'Hearn · K. Altwegg · R. Bertrand · H. Busemann · MT Capria · L. Colangeli · B. Davidsson · P. Ehrenfreund · J. Knollenberg · S. Mottola · A. Rathke · P. Weiss · M. Zolensky · E. Akim · A. Basilevsky · E. Galimov · M. Gerasimov · O. Korablev ...

Organic Molecules in the Icy Bodies of Planetary Systems -Accepted Notions and New Ideas

Open Astronomy, 2018

Cometary bodies are acknowledged to contain some of the most pristine matter in the Solar System, including ices and minerals. Certain number of previously unidentified spectral emission features detected in comets can be explained as emission by hydrocarbon molecules enclosed in a Shpolskii matrix and forming frozen hydrocarbon particles. UV-induced photoluminescence spectra of several self-organized molecules exhibit emission lines coincident with unidentified cometary lines, and open the possibility of the presence of this complex organic as components of the pristine organic inventory of comets. Complex organic was detected also in three satellites of Saturn. We describe in this paper results of our investigation of complex organic of the small bodies and present new approaches and hypotheses.

Astrobiology of comets

2004

We review the current state of knowledge concerning microbial extremophiles and comets and the potential significance of comets to Astrobiology. We model the thermal history of a cometary body, regarded as an assemblage of boulders, dust, ices and organics, as it approaches a perihelion distance of ~ 1AU. The transfer of incident energy from sunlight into the interior leads to the melting of near surface ices, some under stable porous crust, providing possible habitats for a wide range of microorganisms. We provide data concerning new evidence for indigenous microfossils in CI meteorites, which may be the remains of extinct cometary cores. We discuss the dominant microbial communities of polar sea-ice, Antarctic ice sheet, and cryoconite environments as possible analogs for microbial ecosystems that may grow in sub-crustal pools or in ice/water films in comets.

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