NASA's Cassini Spacecraft Finds Ingredient of Household Plastic in Space
Source: N.A.S.A.
Sept 30, 2013
NASA's Cassini Spacecraft Finds Ingredient of Household Plastic in Space
NASA's Cassini spacecraft has detected propylene, a chemical used to make food-storage containers, car bumpers and other consumer products, on Saturn's moon Titan.
This is the first definitive detection of the plastic ingredient on any moon or planet, other than Earth.
A small amount of propylene was identified in Titan's lower atmosphere by Cassini's Composite Infrared Spectrometer (CIRS). This instrument measures the infrared light, or heat radiation, emitted from Saturn and its moons in much the same way our hands feel the warmth of a fire.
Propylene is the first molecule to be discovered on Titan using CIRS. By isolating the same signal at various altitudes within the lower atmosphere, researchers identified the chemical with a high degree of confidence. Details are presented in a paper in the Sept. 30 edition of the Astrophysical Journal Letters.
"This chemical is all around us in everyday life, strung together in long chains to form a plastic called polypropylene," said Conor Nixon, a planetary scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., and lead author of the paper. "That plastic container at the grocery store with the recycling code 5 on the bottom -- that's polypropylene."
Read more: http://www.nasa.gov/press/2013/september/nasas-cassini-spacecraft-finds-ingredient-of-household-plastic-in-space/
onehandle
(51,122 posts)Last edited Mon Sep 30, 2013, 07:24 PM - Edit history (1)
Were so self-important. Everybodys going to save something now. Save the trees, save the bees, save the whales, save those snails. And the greatest arrogance of all: save the planet. Save the planet, we dont even know how to take care of ourselves yet. Im tired of this shit. Im tired of f-ing Earth Day. Im tired of these self-righteous environmentalists, these white, bourgeois liberals who think the only thing wrong with this country is that there arent enough bicycle paths. People trying to make the world safe for Volvos. Besides, environmentalists dont give a shit about the planet. Not in the abstract they dont. You know what theyre interested in? A clean place to live. Their own habitat. Theyre worried that some day in the future they might be personally inconvenienced. Narrow, unenlightened self-interest doesnt impress me.
The planet has been through a lot worse than us. Been through earthquakes, volcanoes, plate tectonics, continental drift, solar flares, sun spots, magnetic storms, the magnetic reversal of the poles
hundreds of thousands of years of bombardment by comets and asteroids and meteors, worldwide floods, tidal waves, worldwide fires, erosion, cosmic rays, recurring ice ages
And we think some plastic bags and some aluminum cans are going to make a difference? The planet isnt going anywhere. WE are!
Were going away. Pack your shit, folks. Were going away. And we wont leave much of a trace, either. Maybe a little Styrofoam
The planetll be here and well be long gone. Just another failed mutation. Just another closed-end biological mistake. An evolutionary cul-de-sac. The planetll shake us off like a bad case of fleas.
The planet will be here for a long, long, LONG time after were gone, and it will heal itself, it will cleanse itself, cause thats what it does. Its a self-correcting system. The air and the water will recover, the earth will be renewed. And if its true that plastic is not degradable, well, the planet will simply incorporate plastic into a new paradigm: the earth plus plastic. The earth doesnt share our prejudice toward plastic. Plastic came out of the earth. The earth probably sees plastic as just another one of its children. Could be the only reason the earth allowed us to be spawned from it in the first place. It wanted plastic for itself. Didnt know how to make it. Needed us. Could be the answer to our age-old egocentric philosophical question, Why are we here?
Plastic
asshole.
red dog 1
(27,648 posts)Pachamama
(16,874 posts)Why are we here? - Plastic, Asshole!
I can only imagine if George Carlin was alive what he might say about the Tea Party and the shutdown....
Downwinder
(12,869 posts)was going to be plastic someday.
Riftaxe
(2,693 posts)TrogL
(32,818 posts)That means Titan is an artificial world. Something I suspected all along.
Link Speed
(650 posts)red dog 1
(27,648 posts)and the only object other than Earth for which "clear evidence of stable bodies of surface liquid has been found.".....Wikipedia
It's also the second-largest moon in the solar system, after Jupiter's moon, Ganymede.
ut oh
(873 posts)that if it was orbiting the sun instead of Saturn, it'd be considered a planet. It is roughly the same size as Mercury.
Rain Mcloud
(812 posts)[link:?w=225&h=171|
red dog 1
(27,648 posts)PoliticAverse
(26,366 posts)DirkGently
(12,151 posts)Mnemosyne
(21,363 posts)Posteritatis
(18,807 posts)7962
(11,841 posts)Jamastiene
(38,187 posts)Everything else seems to nowadays.
Kablooie
(18,571 posts)silvershadow
(10,336 posts)VWolf
(3,944 posts)will make beaucoup bucks promoting "Titanware" on QVC. Lots of gullible folks out there.
randome
(34,845 posts)[hr][font color="blue"][center]Don't ever underestimate the long-term effects of a good night's sleep.[/center][/font][hr]
Peace Patriot
(24,010 posts)And did it sink them?
NealK
(1,788 posts)seveneyes
(4,631 posts)So it would make sense that a methane rich environment could produce such a compound.
penultimate
(1,110 posts)(kidding... except for the last part)
PD Turk
(1,289 posts)donco
(1,548 posts)propylene one of the ingredients in Twinkies?
kestrel91316
(51,666 posts)other planets are made of the effing stuff!!
kestrel91316
(51,666 posts)Judi Lynn
(160,217 posts)NASA's Cassini Spacecraft Detects Plastic Ingredient on Saturn's Moon, Titan (VIDEO)
Benita Matilda
First Posted: Oct 01, 2013 09:01 AM EDT
NASA's unmanned Cassini spacecraft has detected traces of chemical that is used to make household plastic like food storage containers and other consumer products, in the smoggy atmosphere of Saturn's moon, Titan.
A latest announcement by NASA claims that its Cassini spacecraft has detected small amount propylene in the lower atmosphere of Titan. This chemical also called propene, is used to make food storage containers like Tupper wear boxes, car bumpers and other consumer products. This is for the first time that an ingredient of plastic has been detected on any moon or planet other than Earth.
Cassini spacecrafts composite infrared spectrometer (CIRS) detected the traces of Propylene and this is the first molecule that has been discovered in Saturn's moon, Titan. The manner in which CIRS measures infrared light or the heat radiation that is generated by Saturn and its moon is similar to how the human hands feel the warmth of a fire.
Based on this unique thermal fingerprint, CIRS can detect a particular gas present in the Titan's lower layers of atmosphere. It can easily detect the heat signal that is produced by certain chemicals but is extremely challenging to isolate a particular chemical from the range of other signals that are emitted by other gases present.
~snip~
More:
http://www.scienceworldreport.com/articles/9841/20131001/nasas-cassini-spacecraft-detects-plastic-ingredient-saturns-moon-titan-video.htm