Comets May Have Introduced Chemicals to Earth

University of Massachusetts radio astronomers William Irvine, Peter Schloerb and UMass doctoral candidate Amy Lovell, helped organize an international effort to study Comet Hyakutake, the brightest comet of 1996. Irvine says that the observational evidence from viewing Hyakutake – including data from the 14-meter Five College Radio Astronomy Observatory – suggests that it contains some of the same material found deep in interstellar space. This measurement supports the idea that interstellar gases were incorporated into the nucleus of this and other comets, perhaps as ices frozen onto interstellar grains. For more background on this story go to: This related article