Three loafs of nice, healthy bread weighs about 2 kg. The Philae lander is both denser and larger, weighting about 120 kg. No big surprise, it holds metals, cameras, ovens and all sorts of fun, and it can fly through space attached to a rocket / bomb. Loafs cannot fly through space. At least I haven’t heard of any flying loafs of bread in space.
The base of bread baking is flour, water and yeast. Yeast is a living organic compound, which reacts with water and the sugar in flour, Glucose, to generate alcohol and CO2. Carbohydrates / hydrocarbons (CH’s) to alcohol and CO2.
C6H12O6 → 2 C2H5OH + 2 CO2
Comet’s like 67P come from the beginning of what we define as times. Who knows what was before “times”, it must have been something, but that is another topic in line with what is on the outside of the universe (which is infinite). The comet is made of some sort of event (big bang) that sent burning stars and planets of all sizes out to skip and jump through the universe and times. A comet is leftover stuff from the beginning of times.
Like a nice well fermented bread, the comet 67P is not very dense, it would float on water if we got it down here without burning it up in the atmosphere. It might be large voids inside the comet. Like in a loaf of bread.
To make three large, healthy, delicious breads, i use:
- 2 liter of flour (1/3rd fine, 2/3rds coarse)
- 100 grams of fresh yeast
- less than a liter of body temperature water
- quite a bit of salt
- decent amounts of olive oil
My Kenwood does all the physical work on the dough, I mix and plug in the power. The Kenwood runs in a double circle motion, like the earth is spinning around it’s own axis while orbiting the sun. I run it slow, down below the 1 setting on the idle, to be gentle to the dough.
67P orbits the sun, every 6 years it shows up in our vicinity.
I don’t apply heat to the dough before it is done with the fermenting. The heated water gets the yeast and glucose working, rising the bread in the bowl.
The 67P gets heated every 6 years, when it whirls past the sun in its orbit. When heated, some ice cracks off and evaporates, leaving a trace of dust. When it’s out there, not swoshing by the sun, it’s cold, dark, alone, and must have some incredible views.
Yeast is an eukaryotic microorganism, a very simple amoeba, compared to the more stylish and high spec procaryotic ones, which makes up humans and other amazing living creatures. The basis for all life is amino acids which forms the DNA of all things alive. Amino acids consists of hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen and oxygen. And how this all this great stuff get to the earth? Who knows, but maybe from comets like 67P.
When the Philae lands on 67P later today it will start taking samples from the comet and give us incredible data and crazy debates of origin of life, meaning of life and perhaps also touch on how it’s going to end or where we can find more.
My breads have been in the oven for 45 minutes, 225C. I’ll go and have a bite now.
Sources:
ESA, wikipedia, years of making bread, fantastic online science, dubious vague memories and best guesses
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