It seems that the satellite was analysing the spectral signature of volatile gases emitted on 12 January 2007, when Great Comet McNaught (C/2006 P1) was close to perihelion, and chanced on an amazing discovery.
It had long been known that proto amino acids and tenuous hydrocarbons existed in minute amounts in interstellar gas clouds and comets, and this fact had produced theories on the dissemination of those compounds deemed essential for the emergence and support of life in the cosmos.
In fact, it has been proposed by some researchers that the widespread existence of these compounds made it a certainty that some would be present on any Earth-like planet, so that the corresponding development of life on such planets was a certainty.
Therefore, the Japanese researchers had been fully expecting to find traces of hydrocarbons and amino acids in Great Comet McNaught.
What surprised them, however, was that one of the compounds identified proved almost identical in composition to a good quality single malt Scotch whisky, in quantity enough to suggest that perhaps 100 million tons were contained within the comet. Not only was the malt whisky clone of good quality, but it had been aged for approximately four billion years, a factor that should contribute to a unique and very smooth flavour.
This finding has been supported and verified by back-up research by NASA, which it seems is turned on by the prospect of sourcing rocket fuel from the smaller members of the Solar System to refuel vehicles in orbit or in passage, though such a usage would likely cause alarm in Scotland at such sacrilegious behaviour.
The Professor noted in published data from oil companies drilling for oil both offshore and within the British Isles themselves, that deep cores from 100 metres beneath the bed of Loch Ness have been found to contain a layer akin to the K2 boundary including a solidified compound almost identical to the single malt Scotch whisky look-alike identified in the comet.
There has long been a theory held by progressive oil experts, including one Sir Rob Vanderson of Starsend Observatory at Limpia Crossing in West Texas, that the origin of the world's oil reserves is extra-terrestrial rather than being produced on Earth by decaying organic material.
This has lead to many oil companies being motivated to drill for oil in places that had not formerly been considered as likely sources. This has fuelled speculation that when the Loch had been cut off from the sea during the late Pleistocene, it may have been totally filled with this compound as a result of impact by a slow moving cometary body which had not exploded or been totally consumed in the process.
Anthropologists, who had been at a loss to explain bone structural evidence of acute alcoholism in the remains of early hominids excavated both in the Highlands and Lowlands are now speculating that the early population in the vicinity of the Loch may have been consuming alcohol in quantity from what seemed an unlimited source and that highland dancing may have been invented as a means of sobering up inebriated hunters who were needed to bring back game to feed the tribes.
It is now believed that the earliest historical sightings of the fabled Loch Ness monster were in fact caused by an imperfect understanding in tribal society of the nature of delirium tremens.
As the level of the Loch diminished over thousands of years of solid drinking, some early Scots genius no doubt discovered how to replicate the waters of life by distilling the secret herbs and spices.