NASA launching balloon to study comet

NASA was set to launch a balloon into the upper levels of the atmosphere Saturday to study a newly discovered comet from the far reaches of our solar system, in an attempt to find out if the building blocks of life on Earth came from outer space.

“This comet is special – it’s its first visit to the inner solar system, so it still has all the primordial ices and volatiles … the building blocks of life,” Karl Hibbits, deputy principal investigator of the BRRISON experiment, told Al Jazeera. “Those volatiles have to be present for life to be possible.”

Mainstream science had long believed in the “primordial soup” theory, which argues that everything necessary for life was present on Earth at the time of its formation. Now, studies increasingly show that the organic materials necessary for life as we know it – water, hydrogen, carbon, oxygen, and nitrogen – can be found on comets, which scientists know slammed into the earth billions of years ago, transporting and distributing organic material.

“It’s not unreasonable to think that some of the volatiles we have on Earth came from comets,” Hibbits said.

The comet at the focus of the study, Comet ISON, was discovered last year and is on course to travel past the Earth toward the sun. Comets, unlike asteroids, are mostly loosely packed ice with some rocky debris. They tend to stay in outer orbits far from the sun.

ISON is believed to come from a giant cloud of icy comets on the outer edge of our solar system, where colder temperatures allow them to survive. Occasionally a comet is disturbed by a passing star or other gravitational effects, and begins a plunge toward the inner solar system.

These comets are thought to have primordial ratios of volatiles, which scientists can use to glean insights about the evolution of the solar system.

Scientists will use the balloon, named BRRISON, to study the comet and take measurements of the water and carbon dioxide content. Carbon chains form the basis of all living matter on Earth, from the simplest amino acids to complex DNA.

NASA announced via Twitter that BRRISON would be launched Saturday night from Palestine, Texas, weather permitting.

“It’s difficult to measure carbon dioxide because it’s in our atmosphere, so the measurement has to be made from space,” Hibbits said, adding that this was the first time a balloon would be used to make measurements for planetary science.

Sending a balloon to the upper heights of our atmosphere solves that problem. Instruments on the balloon will be used to view the comet, still from a distance but without atmospheric interference, and measure light and wavelengths to infer the comet’s composition.

“We have a very good understanding of how different materials behave optically,” Hibbits told Al Jazeera. “And the measurements will show us how many volatiles were in these comets when they were initially formed.”

Composition of comets is crucial to understanding the processes which led to the evolution of primitive materials to form things such as comets and asteroids, and eventually planets and life as we know it.

Astronomers believe that stars, planets and comets are created in a chain reaction that begins when a cloud of interstellar material collapses under its own gravity. Some of that material forms a star and the rest gets spread around it.

Some of the loose material eventually aggregates and forms planets. In the regions close to the sun, the debris forms asteroids; in outer regions, where it’s cold, comets are formed. Organic molecules necessary for life are generally believed to exist in large amounts in those clouds and comets.

During an event known as the Late Heavy Bombardment almost four billion years ago, the Earth was barraged by tens of thousands of meteors, asteroids, comets and other space debris. This bombardment scarred the moon, whose craters were preserved in the airless environment.

European and Soviet spacecraft studied Haley’s Comet when it passed in March 1986, and found that it was full of organic materials.

Scientists use this knowledge, along with the presence of the building blocks of life on comets, to hypothesize that life would not have existed on Earth if not for comets.

Some scientists also believe that enough comets smashed into our planet to deliver the Earth’s oceans.

Al Jazeera