L’Does Universe have a smell? Surprising as it may seem, the astronauts respond in the affirmative. Scientists who had the chance to fly away for the celestial immensity report having smelled a particular perfume, as relayed by France Info, Sunday January 23. Although, for obvious security reasons, they did not take off their spacesuits during extravehicular outings, some of them testified to odors permeating their suits. What notes make up this spatial aroma? During his olfactory meeting at the Parc des expositions in Nantes, Jean-Luc Mélenchon presented a painting on space which revived this question.
NASA, in collaboration with a chemist, had launched a study on the subject now forgotten, but the testimonies are not lacking. For Discovery pilot Dominic Antonelli, “space really smells different from anything in existence” while NASA veteran Thomas Jones conjures up a “smell of burnt gunpowder”.
According to the American researcher Louis Allamondola, who presents his thesis on the official NASA website, this scent could in particular be caused by stars at the end of their life, which release carbon and nitrogen, among other things. The fragrant result could be akin to “burnt hamburgers”. Another track, the heavy composition of the dust of the “molecular clouds” of the Milky Way. They would exhale a fragrance similar to “some kind of strange ice cream shop, with a cool touch of icy water dominated by a suffocating whiff of ammonia”.
READ ALSOThomas Pesquet now 2and favorite personality of the French
Rum, raspberry and surely other surprises
Finally, the birth of a star would lead to a chemical reaction and the emergence of ethyl formate, which makes up the aroma of raspberry, as well as the appearance of molecules embalmed with the smell of rum. “The flavors result from the mixture of several molecules”, reminds France Info the doctor in astrochemistry Robin Isnard. All the components of these emanations are, to date, not known.
READ ALSOElon Musk is Time Magazine’s Person of the Year