Organic molecules that could have sown the seeds for the development of life on Earth billions of years ago have been “sniffed” by the Philae comet lander.
The chemicals, possibly kicked up in dust as it bounced across 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, were floating around the probe after it landed a week ago.
Ekkehard Kuhrt, of the German Space Agency DLR and a senior Rosetta scientist, said: “We have a great deal of valuable data, which could only have been acquired through direct contact with the comet.”
The first results from a drilling operation, which drained the remaining battery reserves of the probe before it went into hibernation, have been disappointing.
The drill attempted to deliver something to the lander’s oven, designed to vaporise samples. Although the