Astronomy By Korey Haynes 6/3/2019
By mimicking how asteroids naturally convert carbon dioxide into molecular oxygen, researchers hope to one day turn human exhales into breaths of fresh air. Researchers led by Konstantinos Giapis and his postdoctoral fellow Yunxi Yao, wanted to figure out why scientists sometimes see molecular oxygen streaming off some comets – for instance, Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, which was orbited and carefully studied by the Rosetta spacecraft from 2014 to 2016.
Comets can be busy places. They travel at fast speeds, and the transition from the icy cold reaches of the outer solar system to hot sunlight as they approach the Sun can lead to dramatic changes on their surfaces. One of the phenomena that occurs happens when water molecules (hydrogen plus oxygen) are shot at high speeds onto other surfaces containing oxygen, like rust or sand, both common on comets. The reaction isn’t chemical but physical, as the hydrogen gets ripped away and the oxygen molecules stick together instead.
But water isn’t the only oxygen-containing molecule getting slammed into comet surfaces at high speeds. The Caltech researchers wanted to know if carbon dioxide could produce the same result.
More:
https://astronomy.com/news/2019/06/comets-are-teaching-us-how-to-make-breathable-oxygen-in-space
