Astronomer Stephen Edberg of Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) agrees that the toxic gases streaming from the comet's ink black surface "are the building blocks of life--from bacteria on up to us...."

The beautiful giant Hale-Bopp's arrival in 1996 enabled scientists to get a really good look at the makeup and nature of comets for the first time with modern technology....they were able to see this 25 mile diameter comet that had been frozen for 4.5 billion years up close and spewing 90 tons per second, of water, cyanide, formaldehyde and other gases.

Researchers have recently concluded that most of the water, carbon and even gases required for life were brought to Earth by comets.

Researchers Chris McKay and Bill Borucki created a phial of gas simulating the components of what they THINK our early atmosphere was made of and then they mimicked the collision of a comet hitting Earth by using a laser blast at the "primitive" atomosphere. This created a shockwave that initiated temperature and pressure changes that caused the molecular compostion to change in the "atmosphere". "Those new molecules, when mixed in with water, form amino acids. They're the start, the first step towards life.",said Borucki.

Harold Weaver, an astrophysicist at Johns Hopkins University and who specializes in comets stated, "Most of what we're seeing is water ice, but there are also plenty of hydro-carbons and organic molecules that you would need for the genesis of life. One of the major findings from Hale-Bopp is all of these chemical molecules that are erupting from the comet as it heats from the Sun."

At present researchers have detected no less than 13 chemical molecules in the comet, including the starting point for forming amino acids, which are the basic molecule of life.

Scientists have found the following chemical compounds on Hale-Bopp: Methane, acetylene, hydrogen cyanide, hydrogen sulfide, carbon disulfide, methyl cyanide, formic acid,ethylene and carbonyl sulfide.