Perfume is not the correct word to describe the terrible smelling concoction the European Space Agency (ESA) had a perfumery create to remind the world what discoveries on Comet 66/P Churyumov-Gerasimenko have meant to science.

According to the privileged few that have smelt it, the Comet 67/P "perfume" is a terrible alien-like odor reminding one's brain of cat urine, rotten eggs and bitter almonds combined. The stink left behind by this outer space odor is awful.

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New Scientist journalist Jacob Aron said the odor is a "sharp, unpleasant scent" he could feel as a "physical presence" inside his skull. It smelt so bad it caused a physical reaction in his brain about similar to getting slapped in the face.

ESA said the ingredients that went into making this cometary odor are those detected on Comet 67/P by its orbiting Rosetta space probe that rendezvoused with the asteroid in August 2014 after a spectacular 10 year-long chase.

Rosetta used a technique called mass spectrometry to detect strong-smelling chemicals emitted by 67/P, including methane, formaldehyde, ammonia (which smells like urine), hydrogen sulphide, hydrogen cyanide and sulphur dioxide (the gas that smells like rotten eggs). Really bad smelling stuff, these.

But there's an upside. Rosetta also detected the presence of amino acids, the building blocks of proteins, which are essential ingredients to create life as we know it. Comets are carriers of these building blocks and scientists believe life on Earth might have sprung from asteroids smashing into our planet over four billion years ago.

Fortunately or unfortunately, select people will be able to smell the comet's odor for themselves when they receive special postcards from the ESA impregnated with the odor.

Now why did ESA ask perfumiers at The Aroma Company, a British "scent marketing company," to re-create the smell of the dumbbell-shaped comet's thin atmosphere?

ESA saw this project as a way of engaging more people with the Rosetta mission as part of next week's Royal Society's Summer Exhibition in London, said astronomer Dr Colin Snodgrass at The Open University.

"They aren't quite scratch and sniff," said Dr. Snodgrass of the space smell, but "people can take them away."

TagsComet 66/P Churyumov-Gerasimenko, european space agency, Perfume, rosetta