# Comet Spews Alcohol and Sugar **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 26, 2015, 9:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/comet-spews-alcohol-and-sugar/735780 "2015-10-26T09:55:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2015, 9:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/comet-spews-alcohol-and-sugar/735780/1 "2015-10-26T09:55:13Z")
This is interesting: > [@](#): > > It’s named Comet Lovejoy, and the space rock could certainly make some people on Earth joyful: It’s pumping out as much alcohol as in 500 bottles of wine every second, according to Nicolas Biver of the Paris Observatory in France. > > The discovery marks the first time that ethyl alcohol, the same type in alcoholic beverages, has been observed in a comet. > > The comet also is sprinkling out a type of sugar, according to the new observations by Biver, the lead author of a paper that published October 23 in Science Advances. > **[Sweet comet is spewing alcohol across space | CNN](https://www.cnn.com/2015/10/25/us/comet-lovejoy-spews-alcohol/index.html)** > > Comet Lovejoy is pumping out as much alcohol as in 500 bottles of wine every second, according to Nicolas Biver of the Paris Observatory in France. My question is: I thought complex organic molecules like sugar and alcohol were only possible through biological processes. Do we know where they come from, or how they are created at the formation of the solar system? ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2015, 10:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/comet-spews-alcohol-and-sugar/735780/2 "2015-10-26T10:05:48Z")
> [@Fear\_Itself](#): > > My question is: I thought complex organic molecules like sugar and alcohol were only possible through biological processes. No, those are simply the means by which it is easier to obtain them… so long as we’re talking about a sugar and an alcohol as common as table sugar and ethanol, but those simply happen to be common in our own environment; glucose obtained from biological sources is the preferred starting point for what’s called “sugar chemistry”, making complicated sugars and other types of molecules which are similar to them, simply because it’s so abundant and cheap compared with other possible starting points. The partial redox processes to make ethanol from other small C-containing chemicals are theoretically possible outside of a living cell or a reactor, but the “correct environment” (the cell or reactor) makes them a lot easier. The first biological process took place directly after an inorganic process, unless you want to posit that Someone went and made the first biological system. ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2015, 10:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/comet-spews-alcohol-and-sugar/735780/3 "2015-10-26T10:42:20Z")
Wiki has an explanation of how [Tholins](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tholin) come to be. ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2015, 10:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/comet-spews-alcohol-and-sugar/735780/4 "2015-10-26T10:44:11Z")
> [@](#): > > Comet Spews Alcohol and Sugar Road trip. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2015, 12:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/comet-spews-alcohol-and-sugar/735780/5 "2015-10-26T12:31:23Z")
> [@Fear\_Itself](#): > > … I thought complex organic molecules like sugar and alcohol were only possible through biological processes. … Back in the 1700s when chemistry was a new science folks thought anything involving carbon had to be biological in origin. So they coined the terms “organic chemistry” and “inorganic chemistry” to mean with- and with-out carbon. The terms survive today although we now know enough chemistry to understand the distinction is utterly baseless. Carbon chemistry is interesting enough that it deserves its own term. It’s just inertia that we continue to use a fundamentally wrong-headed term. Chemistry has a lot of that sort of thinking embedded in it. ---
**Author:** ![lazybratsche](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ba8739/32.png) [@lazybratsche](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lazybratsche)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2015, 12:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/comet-spews-alcohol-and-sugar/735780/6 "2015-10-26T12:35:38Z")
FWIW, the “sugar” that was found is glycoaldehyde, the simplest possible 2-carbon sugar. Does anyone have some good suggested reading on the chemistry of schmutz in space? I know the atoms get synthesized and spread around the galaxy in supernovae, and we end up with planetary systems where that material ends up as asteroids, comets, and planets. I take it there must be some sort of condensation of interstellar gases into some kind of dust? The regimes involved, from insanely high pressure/temperature plasma capable of fusing the heaviest elements, to nearly absolute zero vacuum, are a little different from what I’m used to dealing with in biochemistry… ---
**Author:** ![Slithy\_Tove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slithy_tove/32/18248_2.png) [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2015, 12:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/comet-spews-alcohol-and-sugar/735780/7 "2015-10-26T12:44:59Z")
So we need to amend that Joni Mitchell lyric from _“we are stardust”_ to _“we are the puke from a college girl who’s had too many jello shots?”_ ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2015, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/comet-spews-alcohol-and-sugar/735780/8 "2015-10-26T15:26:20Z")
Dinosaur poop. We’re all dinosaur poop. See here for more: [https://what-if.xkcd.com/74/](https://what-if.xkcd.com/74/) ---
**Author:** ![Atamasama](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atamasama/32/12961_2.png) [@Atamasama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atamasama)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2015, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/comet-spews-alcohol-and-sugar/735780/9 "2015-10-26T15:39:44Z")
Go home comet, you’re drunk. ☹ ---
**Author:** ![Si\_Amigo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/si_amigo/32/2877_2.png) [@Si\_Amigo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Si_Amigo)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2015, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/comet-spews-alcohol-and-sugar/735780/10 "2015-10-26T16:56:07Z")
> [@Atamasama](#): > > Go home comet, you’re drunk. ☹ And giving me cavities to boot. ☹ ---
**Author:** ![Ale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f19dbf/32.png) [@Ale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ale)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2015, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/comet-spews-alcohol-and-sugar/735780/11 "2015-10-26T18:38:56Z")
Fancy that, it turns out that if a comet has too much alcohol it ends up in a coma. ---
**Author:** ![Hopeful\_Crow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/da6949/32.png) [@Hopeful\_Crow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hopeful_Crow)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2015, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/comet-spews-alcohol-and-sugar/735780/12 "2015-10-26T18:44:58Z")
I thought this was going to be about a fun experiment similar to a baking soda and vinegar volcano, only involving Comet Cleanser and two other ingredients. ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2015, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/comet-spews-alcohol-and-sugar/735780/13 "2015-10-26T18:51:22Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > Back in the 1700s when chemistry was a new science folks thought anything involving carbon had to be biological in origin. So they coined the terms “organic chemistry” and “inorganic chemistry” to mean with- and with-out carbon. > > The terms survive today although we now know enough chemistry to understand the distinction is utterly baseless. Carbon chemistry is interesting enough that it deserves its own term. It’s just inertia that we continue to use a fundamentally wrong-headed term. Chemistry has a lot of that sort of thinking embedded in it. Nice point. ---
**Author:** ![lieu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c2a13f/32.png) [@lieu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lieu)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2015, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/comet-spews-alcohol-and-sugar/735780/14 "2015-10-26T19:11:02Z")
_Ground control to major Tom Collins…_ It’s like Heavens’ Gate for frat boys.