Philae's Comet May Support Alien Life, Rosetta Mission Reveals

Could there be evidence of alien life on comets? Scientists have taken a closer look at the comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko and have found that it might be possible that micro-organisms could explain the unusual features seen on this particular comet.

The Rosetta spacecraft has been studying the comet ever since September 2014. In fact, Rosetta even launched Philae, a lander, to explore the comet more in depth.

So far, the Rosetta data has revealed that the comet is irregularly "duck-shaped" and is about 4.3 by 4.1 km in extent. It appears to have a black crust and underlying ice. In addition, images reveal that there are large, smooth "seas,' flat-bottomed craters and a surface peppered with mega-boulders. The crater lakes are re-frozen bodies of water overlain with organic debris. Parallel furrows relate to the flexing of the asymmetric and spinning double-lobed body, which generates fractures in the ice beneath.

So what do these features mean? In this case, researchers argue that the specific features are consistent with a mixture of ice and organic material that consolidate under the sun's warming during the comet's orbiting in space, when active micro-organisms can be supported.

In the model, the micro-organisms probably require liquid water bodies to colonize the comet. Likely, the organisms inhabit cracks in the ice and "snow" on the comet; it's possible that the organisms contain anti-freeze salts that allow them to be active at temperatures as low as -40 degrees Celsius.

"Rosetta has already shown that the comet is not to be seen as a deep-frozen inactive body, but supports geological processes and could be more hospitable to micro-life than our Arctic and Antarctic regions," said Max Wallis, one of the researchers, in a news release.

With that said, this is only a theory. More research needs to be conducted on the comet before any firm conclusions can be made.

The findings were presented at the National Astronomy Meeting in Wales.

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