<\/p>
The European Space Agency\u2019s Philae lander analysed the chemical makeup of\u00a0the\u00a0comet 67P\/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. The main constituents were odourless water vapour, carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide. But there were also traces of particularly pungent (and toxic) substances such as ammonia (which smells like urine), sulphur dioxide (burning matches), hydrogen cyanide (almonds) and hydrogen sulphide (rotten eggs).<\/p>\n
In 2016, Dr Colin Snodgrass, a researcher at the Open University, UK, commissioned The Aroma Company to recreate the unpleasant scent to be impregnated in promotional postcards.<\/p>\n
Read more:\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Asked by: Asked by: Grace Packard, Exeter<\/strong><\/p>\n To submit your questions email us at questions@sciencefocus.com (don\u2019t forget to include your name and location)<\/em><\/p><\/body><\/html>\n By Dr Alastair Gunn Published: Tuesday, 09 November 2021 at 12:00 am The European Space Agency\u2019s Philae lander analysed the chemical makeup of\u00a0the\u00a0comet 67P\/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. The main constituents were odourless water vapour, carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide. But there were also traces of particularly pungent (and toxic) substances such as ammonia (which smells like urine), sulphur […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":256,"template":"","categories":[1],"acf":{"readingTimeMinutes":"< 1"},"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2021\/11\/what-does-a-comet-smell-like.jpg",1200,536,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2021\/11\/what-does-a-comet-smell-like-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2021\/11\/what-does-a-comet-smell-like-300x134.jpg",300,134,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2021\/11\/what-does-a-comet-smell-like-768x343.jpg",768,343,true],"large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2021\/11\/what-does-a-comet-smell-like-1024x457.jpg",800,357,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2021\/11\/what-does-a-comet-smell-like.jpg",1200,536,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2021\/11\/what-does-a-comet-smell-like.jpg",1200,536,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"importmanagerhub@sprylab.com","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/author\/importmanagerhubsprylab-com\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"By Dr Alastair Gunn Published: Tuesday, 09 November 2021 at 12:00 am The European Space Agency\u2019s Philae lander analysed the chemical makeup of\u00a0the\u00a0comet 67P\/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. The main constituents were odourless water vapour, carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide. But there were also traces of particularly pungent (and toxic) substances such as ammonia (which smells like urine), sulphur…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed\/255"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/rss_feed"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/256"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=255"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=255"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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