Rosetta mission finds oxygen on comet 67P

The rubber duck-shaped comet named 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko is yielding more and more surprises.

Scientists have now found oxygen in its hazy halo, a discovery that could change our understanding of how the solar system formed.

The findings, which baffled the Rosetta team, were published in the journal Nature.

Oxygen is common on Earth, but not elsewhere in the universe. Scientists had certainly never found it on a comet before. What also surprised them was how much there was.

I've detected molecular oxygen that was likely incorporated into #67P during its formation! https://t.co/Mpqe21Dt57 pic.twitter.com/LOFKzp9B9K— ESA Rosetta Mission (@ESA_Rosetta) October 28, 2015


A decade ago, Rosetta the spacecraft and Philae the robot set out to catch comet 67P. Last year, Rosetta dropped Philae onto its surface to study it more closely. The tools on Rosetta already found earlier this year that the comet had its own kind of water.

Comets are of huge interest to scientists be