「羅塞塔號」着陸機從彗星大気検出有機物

A few weeks ago the Yomiuri News on-line reported the following:

星大気から有機物…「ロゼッタ」着陸機が検出

2014年11月18日 20時29分

　欧州宇宙機関（ＥＳＡ）の彗星(すいせい)探査機「ロゼッタ」の小型着陸機が降下した彗星で、有機物が検出されたと、小型着陸機を管制するドイツ航空宇宙センターが発表した。

　彗星から噴き出たちりから有機物が見つかった例はあるが、今回は初めて彗星の地表付近の気体から検出された。彗星は惑星をつくる原材料と考えられている。有機物は生命体を構成する材料になり得るため、その種類が分かれば、生命の起源を探る手がかりが得られる可能性がある。

　小型着陸機「フィラエ」は１３日未明に「チュリュモフ・ゲラシメンコ彗星」に着陸したが、１５日に内蔵電池が切れて休眠状態になった。しかし、この間に地表付近の初期観測は終えており、ロゼッタ経由でデータを地球に送信した。解析の結果、彗星の地表付近にわずかに存在する濃度の薄い気体から有機物が検出された。センターで有機物の種類を分析している。

　過去の観測では、米航空宇宙局（ＮＡＳＡ）の探査機「スターダスト」が２００６年に持ち帰った「ビルト２彗星」のちりから、アミノ酸が見つかっている。

(試譯文)

   The small landing machine "Rosetta", as a comet probing machine of the European Space Agency (ESA), had descended on a comet; the Germany Aerospace Center which controlled this small landing machine announced that organic matter was detected.

  There was an example that organic matter was found from the dust spouted from a comet, but this was the first time it was detected in the gas around the surface of a comet’s earth. Comet was regarded as the raw material in building a planet. Because organic matter could be the material from which life forms were composed, when knowing its basic composition, there was a possibility that one could get a clue in looking for the origin of life.

  A small landing craft the "Firae" had landed on "Comet Churyumofu Gerashimenko" at dawn on the 13^th (November), but on the 15th its built-in battery stopped and it was in a dormant state. An early stage observation around its earth’s surface had been finished on the other day; data were sent to planet Earth via Rosetta. As a result of an analysis, organic matter was detected in the light density gas that thinly existed around the surface of the comet’s earth. The kind of organic matter was being analyzed at the Center.

  Based on observations by NASA of the US in the past, in the dust of "Comet Wild 2" brought home by the spacecraft "Stardust" in 2006 amino acid was found.

I am interested in scientific findings that could help give a clue in knowing the origin of life. May be the comet is related to the Cambrian explosion: the sudden appearance of complex life on earth many million years ago.