A visit to Comet 46P/Vertanin in the inner solar system in 2018 also appears to have brought gifts, and based on an analysis of its atmospheric state, astronomers say it has an "unusually high" alcohol content, which could tell us some very interesting things about the evolution of the solar system.
Comet 46P/Virtanen has the highest alcohol-to-aldehyde ratio ever measured among all known comets, which tells us information about how carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen molecules were distributed in the early solar system when comets formed.
Comet Virtanen is a permanent resident of the solar system, orbiting the sun every 5.4 years and occasionally approaching the Earth so much that we can see it with the naked eye in the night sky. The most recent visit was in December 2018, when it was about 11.6 million kilometers from Earth. Astronomers took full advantage of the opportunity to study the comet from a relatively close location using the Keck Observatory's Near-Infrared Spectrometer (NIRSPEC).
In the atmosphere of Comet Vertanin, NIRSPEC detected its composition in just 10 minutes: acetylene, ammonia, ethane, formaldehyde, hydrogen cyanide, methanol and water.
Organic compounds on comets existed at the beginning of the formation of the solar system, and following the comet's trajectory, we may be able to find the basic material of these life on other planets, and even open an exciting door to the possibility of extraterrestrial life.