Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jun 5, 2026

Scattering And Absorption of Light in Planetary Regoliths
Published on: July 1, 2019
ESA's Cometary Mission Rosetta-Re-Characterization of the COSAC Mass Spectrometry Results
Guillaume Leseigneur1, Jan Hendrik Bredehöft2, Thomas Gautier3,4
1Université Côte d'Azur, CNRS UMR 7272, Institut de Chimie de Nice, 28 Avenue Valrose, 06108, Nice, France.
Abstract:
The most pristine material of the Solar System is assumed to be preserved in comets in the form of dust and ice as refractory matter. ESA's mission Rosetta and its lander Philae had been developed to investigate the nucleus of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko in situ. Twenty-five minutes after the initial touchdown of Philae on the surface of comet 67P in November 2014, a mass spectrum was recorded by the time-of-flight mass spectrometer COSAC onboard Philae. The new characterization of this mass spectrum through non-negative least squares fitting and Monte Carlo simulations reveals the chemical composition of comet 67P. A suite of 12 organic molecules, 9 of which also found in the original analysis of this data, exhibit high statistical probability to be present in the grains sampled from the cometary nucleus. These volatile molecules are among the most abundant in the comet's chemical composition and represent an inventory of the first raw materials present in the early Solar System.
More Related Videos
10:22Split Point Analysis and Uncertainty Quantification of Thermal-Optical Organic/Elemental Carbon Measurements
Published on: September 7, 2019
07:54Capillary Electrophoresis Mass Spectrometry Approaches for Characterization of the Protein and Metabolite Corona Acquired by Nanomaterials
Published on: October 27, 2020
Related Concept Videos
High-Resolution Mass Spectrometry (HRMS)
Mass Spectrometers
Mass Spectrometry: Complex Analysis
GC–MS is a powerful hyphenated method commonly used in forensics and environmental...
Inductively Coupled Plasma–Mass Spectrometry (ICP–MS): Overview
Atomic Emission Spectroscopy: Instrumentation
Atomic Emission Spectroscopy: Lab