A new report in Nature reveals that "abundant molecular oxygen" has been found for the very first time on a comet, surprising astronomers and shedding new light on the origins of the solar system.
The observations were taken from comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko between September 2014 and March 2015 by a European Space Agency spacecraft. As 67P nudged toward the Sun, solar radiation vaporized the ice and gas on comet's surface. Data from this "halo" around the comet were taken by a mass spectrometer.
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