NASA's Cassini Spacecraft Finds Ingredient of Household Plastic in Space

[Eugene]

Source: NASA

NASA's Cassini Spacecraft Finds Ingredient of Household Plastic in Space

Sept 30, 2013

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.

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Read more: http://www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/nasas-cassini-spacecraft-finds-ingredient-of-household-plastic-in-space/

[longship]

1. I love Cassini!!

And here's Carolyn Porco talking about this remarkable space craft way back in 2007. It is an awesome and inspiring TED talk.

[eppur_se_muova]

2. More relevantly -- the second or third simplest unsaturated hydrocarbon.

Titan's atmosphere is known to contain several simple HCs; now it is known to contain propene as well. Interestingly, propyne was already known to be present, so this isn't really a dramatic breakthrough. AFAIK, all of the compounds found in Titan's atmosphere so far are explicable as products of photodecomposition of methane and nitrogen in the outer atmosphere; Titan has no ozone layer to block high-energy UV, so this is expected to be an active mechanism for chemical restructuring of the atmosphere. No more complex photosynthesis -- as might be found in simple organisms -- is evident so far.