Comets And Deep Fried Ice Cream: the Tasty Similarities

It's important to note that in normal Earth conditions, we would never see the amorphous "fluffy" ice that makes up a comet. That's because no where on Earth, even in the Himalayas, is cold enough to flash freeze molecules in their initially chaotic state, trapping even polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons - ice infused with organics (dust) from the Universe. Even the fluffiest of snow on Earth is actually a loose clump of tiny ice crystals.

Gudipati, who obviously loves his food similes, said amorphous ice is a lot like cotton candy.

However, as the comet's "cotton candy" exterior warms near the Sun, water-ice crystals start to form. The surface becomes denser and more ordered, and the trapped hydrocarbons are freed to race to the comet's surface. The result is a crunchy comet crust sprinkled with organics, with an amorphous ice interior - the "ice cream" of our fried ice cream example - just below.

"It's beautiful to think about how far we have come in our understanding of comets," Gudipati added. "Future missions designed to bring cold samples of comets back to Earth could allow us to fully unravel their secrets."

When that time comes, however, they might want to use some new similes. We wouldn't want a hungry researcher "taste-testing" the samples, after all.

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