A group of researchers have found that comet Lovejoy is emitting ethyl alcohol and sugar as it traverses through space. Their discovery adds evidence to the theory that comets may have "seeded" Earth with complex organic molecules which led to the emergence of life.
"We found that comet Lovejoy was releasing as much alcohol as in at least 500 bottles of wine every second during its peak activity ," said Nicolas Biver of the Paris Observatory in France, lead author of the new research paper published in the journal Science Advances on October 23, 2015. The researchers also found that in addition to ethyl alcohol and glycolaldehyde (a simple sugar) the comet was releasing material that contained 21 different types of simple organic molecules including ethylene glycol, methyl formate and formamide among others.
