bsmith821

Will @MAVEN2Mars be able to detect guanine, adenine, thymine, cytosine in #CometSidingSpring with spectroscopy? How could any of the Maven Mission designers have imagined that a week after arriving at MARS this amazing craft would have the opportunity to analyze a very close "long period comet". Surely this in itself will be a historic achievement. But find evidence consistent with Panspermia will be momentous. I wait with bated-breath. It is my 68th birthday :-)

Would you consider reopening this AMA for a couple of hours after the COMET Siding Spring pass-by? Will MAVEN Mission have a USTREAM event for the pass-by? What time is it from/to on Oct 19?

Surely this is only one possibility. If long period comets do act like interstellar Dysons, we would expect the "gas coma" to be full of complex molecules even RNA/DNA and possibly dormant viruses. If your spectroscopy does NOT detect this then Panspermia will need to be re-written. ie this is a perfect moment to put Panspermia "to bed" once and for all.

Some hypothesize these long period comets in fact are slingshot from an adjacent star rather than disturbed (somehow) from the Oort Cloud "shell". Their spectroscopy is key to understanding what they carry into our own solar system. Have your spectroscopy team interfaced to ALMA spectroscopy people (Anthony Remijan and co). It would be a very sad missed opportunity if your spectroscopy experts failed to search for the main complex molecules of RNA/DNA. I am sure they will be doing this. Here is my wish list to look for :

Guanine : C5H5N5O Adenine : C5H5N5 Thymine : C5H6N2O2 Cytosine : C4H5N3O

Good summary of what we have already found in interstellar space. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_interstellar_and_circumstellar_molecules But what is Comet Siding Spring bringing?