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The Moon Has A Comet-like Coma And Tail
by Phillip F. Schewe and Ben Stein
Physics News Update
American Institute of Physics Bulletin of Physics News
Number 36 (Story #5), May 31, 1991
Michael Mendillo of Boston University, reporting at this week's meeting of American Geophysical Union in Baltimore, showed that the moon has a tail, consisting of sodium gas, extending at least 15,000 miles away from the lunar surface. The sodium, Mendillo believes, is released from lunar rocks by meteorite impacts and is later dissipated into space where it is formed into a tail by the force of solar radiation.
Joint News Release
Boston University
Center for Space Physics
and American Geophysical Union
1 June 1999
Boston University astronomers announced today the discovery of an enormous tail of sodium gas stretching to great distances from the moon. The observations were made at the McDonald Observatory in Fort Davis, Texas, on nights following the Leonid meteor shower of November 1998. The tail of sodium gas was seen to distances of at least 500,000 miles from the moon, changing its appearance over three consecutive nights... Ten years ago, groundbased telescopes revealed that sodium gas (Na) was in the lunar atmosphere, an element that can be used to trace the shape and behavior of such a thin atmosphere... The BU team considered several theories that could explain these unusual features, ruling out a comet, the impact of Leonid meteors upon dust in the solar system, and even possible instrumentation problems... [T]he August observations without meteors and the November observations with meteors imply that the daily flux of micrometeors that strikes the moon's surface creates an extended tail at all times; it was just so enhanced during the strong Leonid storm that it was observed rather easily.
New Molecule Found In Comet May Unlock Solar System Origins
Space.com
Oct 15 1999 12:46:25 ET
The discovery of nitrogen sulfide (NS), a molecule known to exist within dense interstellar clouds, but previously unseen in a comet, may offer new clues to the origin of the solar system... The compound is the only known molecule in comets that contains both nitrogen and sulfur. The molecule is a "radical," which means that chemically, it is highly reactive... The discovery raises the question of whether the NS in comet Hale-Bopp (pictured here in a timed exposure with the moon) has existed since the start of the solar system, or if it was produced as a result of other compounds in the comet breaking apart... The way in which the abundance of NS varies in the comet's atmosphere -- or coma -- would indicate whether the molecule is the result of other compounds breaking apart due to the effect of sunlight, or whether it was produced by chemical reactions. To make such a determination, the NS molecule must be found in other comets.
Comets Throw Light On Solar System's Beginnings
Science Daily
Monday, September 8, 2008
A new picture of the composition of comets is emerging with the help of 21st century technology available at Diamond, the UK's national synchrotron light source, in Oxfordshire... Most of the icy, small planetary bodies that otherwise became comets went into forming the gas giant planets... a fraction ended up in the inner Solar System bringing water and biogenic elements of interest to Earth. Without this cometary transport, life on Earth may never have had a chance to start... Dr John Bridges, from the Space Research Centre, explains the results, "Comets are starting to look a lot more complicated than the old dusty iceball idea. For one thing Wild-2 contains material, like chromium oxides, from the hot inner Solar System -- so how did that material get mixed in with a comet which has spent most of its life beyond Neptune? ...we have also been finding X-ray signatures of iron oxides. These are important because they show that on the Wild-2 nucleus there could have been small trickles of water that deposited these minerals. Similar grains are found in carbonaceous chondrite meteorites. This might mean that there have been localised heating events perhaps caused by impact on the Wild-2 nucleus that melted some of its ice." ...Dr Bridges adds, "It's now becoming clear that not all comets are the same..."
Ingredients for Life on Earth May Have Been Delivered by Comets
by Mario Aguilera, Cindy Clark
2001
After obtaining a pristine piece of the interior portion of Orgueil, the researchers found that it contained a relatively simple mixture of amino acids, consisting primarily of glycine and beta-alanine. They also analyzed the sample's carbon isotope concentration and found that the amino acids were not derived from earthly contamination. "We found that the amino acids in Orgueil are abiotic. They were formed without the help of biology, only chemical reactions," said co-author Botta. "We think these amino acids were synthesized in space."