Florida Tech’s Oluseyi: Comet Landing Could Yield Insight Into Solar System’s Origin

MELBOURNE, FLA. — With the successful landing today of the Philae spacecraft on the surface of comet 67/P, experiments can get underway that may shed light on some of the biggest questions in science and astronomy, according to Hakeem Oluseyi, an associate professor of physics and space sciences at Florida Institute of Technology.

Speaking on CNN today, Oluseyi said there is a lot to learn from this project because comets are “relics left over from the formation of the early solar system.”

“We can learn about the composition of the early solar nebula from which the planets and the sun formed,” Oluseyi said, “to see if there are organic materials there that can tell us something about the origin of life in our solar system.”

He said landing on a comet represents, in a way, the final frontier.

“We’ve landed on the moon, landed on other planets, landed on the moons of other planets, landed on an asteroid – and now we’re landing on a comet.”

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