Cassini Finds Plastic Ingredient in Space [merged]

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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.

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NASA | Propylene on Titan

With a thick atmosphere, clouds, a rain cycle and giant lakes, Saturn's large moon Titan is a surprisingly Earthlike place. But unlike on Earth, Titan's surface is far too cold for liquid water - instead, Titan's clouds, rain, and lakes consist of liquid hydrocarbons like methane and ethane (which exist as gases here on Earth). When these hydrocarbons evaporate and encounter ultraviolet radiation in Titan's upper atmosphere, some of the molecules are broken apart and reassembled into longer hydrocarbons like ethylene and propane.

NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft first revealed the presence of several species of atmospheric hydrocarbons when it flew by Titan in 1980, but one molecule was curiously missing - propylene, the main ingredient in plastic number 5. Now, thanks to NASA's Cassini spacecraft, scientists have detected propylene on Titan for the first time, solving a long-standing mystery about the solar system's most Earthlike moon.

Credit: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

Source: NASA - Multimedia

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http://news.yahoo.com/nasa-finds-ingredient-plastic-saturns-moon-titan-145445605.html

For the first time, a chemical essential for the creation of plastic on Earth has been found in a far-off part of the solar system: Saturn's largest Titan.