Rosetta has made the first detection of molecular nitrogen at a comet. The results provide clues about the temperature environment in which Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko formed. (Photo : ESA/Rosetta/NavCam – CC BY-SA IGO 3.0)
The European Space Agency's comet hunting Rosetta spacecraft revealed in the last two years how a comet smells like and it is apparently rather putrid, as natural gases enshrouding the comet known as comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, include ammonia., hydrogen sulphide, hydrogen and cyanide. Combined, these gases can smell similarly to sulfur, rotten eggs or cat urine.
Now, Rosetta mission scientists are in the quest to recreate the comet's scent, by creating a perfume smelling quite like comet 67P. Scientists have collaborated with The Aroma Company to actually make a comet perfume.
According to Colin Snodgrass from the Department of Physical Sciences at London's Open University, he developed the scent of comet 67P to be placed onto postcards and shipped all over the globe for humans to take a whiff and remember what the solar system smells like.
These comet scented postcards from the Rosetta team will now be distributed during The Royal Society's Summer Science Exhibition in London, which is a science festival that offers free admission.
For those who won't be able to make it to the exhibition, apart from the way scientists described the scent of the Rosetta's comet, others also claim it to be sharp and unpleasant, where New Scientist even described the scent as overwhelming as a "physical presence inside the skull".
This is also not the actual specimen collected from the comet, but the perfume is just a distilled version of the comet's vile scent.
Rosetta researchers also explain that the comet's smell is truly that bad however, on the comet, it would also be difficult to smell it since if any human would stand on comet 67P without any space suit, the smell would be less noticeable since the lack of air is a much more powerful presence.
