Aine Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Starbinder Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > The question of interstellar oxygen remains
> > unanswered. How many of the detected gases were
> > made by Philae and how many from the tail side
> of
> > the coma by Rosetta? It is my understanding
> that
> > the gases have been detected 10 and 100km off
> the
> > nucleus.
>
> Why so? And I fail to see how any of this
> discredits the standard solar system formation
> model and validates Velikovsky. They also detected
> a lot of N2 (molecular nitrogen), which indicates
> that the comet formed at low temperatures. That's
> perfectly in line with the standard model.
>
> It's perfectly possible that it was the sun's rays
> and the proximity of the comet to the sun set up
> the necessary chemical conditions to release O2
> (perhaps from the breakdown of CO2?).


They haven't detected any of the molecular gases on the nucleus (coming from inside the nucleus) with Philae, it's all been done with instrumentation aboard Rosetta from quite a distance and to the tail side of the coma, as I understand. So, the origin is not 100% settled.

What we've learned is there is little ice on comet surfaces and certainly nary a trace on 67P, but apparently the coma is water heavy. We now know the oxygen has not combined with hydrogen in the coma to form the water, leaving the (electrical) solar wind as the next best mechanism.

There are also ideas that the molecular water does exist in space and could be dragging into the come via the tail. As exotic or simple as that sounds, the truth is this mission is slowly eliminating standard theory explanations.

Also, surprisingly the jets have yet to be analyzed and it's likely they will be surprised like pretty much this whole mission with the results which could reveal mostly dust.