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

[Judi Lynn]

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]

1. George Carlin Got It Right!

Last edited Mon Sep 30, 2013, 07:24 PM - Edit history (1)

“We’re so self-important. Everybody’s 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 don’t even know how to take care of ourselves yet. I’m tired of this shit. I’m tired of f-ing Earth Day. I’m tired of these self-righteous environmentalists, these white, bourgeois liberals who think the only thing wrong with this country is that there aren’t enough bicycle paths. People trying to make the world safe for Volvos. Besides, environmentalists don’t give a shit about the planet. Not in the abstract they don’t. You know what they’re interested in? A clean place to live. Their own habitat. They’re worried that some day in the future they might be personally inconvenienced. Narrow, unenlightened self-interest doesn’t 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 isn’t going anywhere. WE are!

We’re going away. Pack your shit, folks. We’re going away. And we won’t leave much of a trace, either. Maybe a little Styrofoam … The planet’ll be here and we’ll be long gone. Just another failed mutation. Just another closed-end biological mistake. An evolutionary cul-de-sac. The planet’ll shake us off like a bad case of fleas.

The planet will be here for a long, long, LONG time after we’re gone, and it will heal itself, it will cleanse itself, ’cause that’s what it does. It’s a self-correcting system. The air and the water will recover, the earth will be renewed. And if it’s true that plastic is not degradable, well, the planet will simply incorporate plastic into a new paradigm: the earth plus plastic. The earth doesn’t 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. Didn’t 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]

6. "Don't sweat the petty things; and don't pet the sweaty things."............George Carlin

[Pachamama]

16. OMG I just laughed so hard I almost lost it....

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]

2. The whole universe is plastic. When I was a kid they said everything

was going to be plastic someday.

[Riftaxe]

11. One word, plastics

[TrogL]

3. oooo I can hear the tinfoil hat brigade now

That means Titan is an artificial world. Something I suspected all along.

[Link Speed]

4. Dang, they found my secret camping spot. nt

[red dog 1]

5. Titan is the only natural satellite known to have a dense atmosphere,

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]

9. Titan is also large enough

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]

7. Pack it in,Pack it out!

[link:?w=225&h=171|

[red dog 1]

8. Thanks Judy Lynn for posting.

[PoliticAverse]

10. Just one word...

[DirkGently]

12. Alien litterbugs.

[Mnemosyne]

13. So our filth has spread that far now? nt

[Posteritatis]

24. No. (nt)

[7962]

14. Now we can mine it!

[Jamastiene]

15. Does it say "Made in China?"

Everything else seems to nowadays.

[Kablooie]

17. The pacific garbage patch is bigger than I thought!

[silvershadow]

18. So Titan is the Tupperware planet?

[VWolf]

22. Well, u know that someone

will make beaucoup bucks promoting "Titanware" on QVC. Lots of gullible folks out there.

[randome]

26. This guy knows.

[hr][font color="blue"][center]Don't ever underestimate the long-term effects of a good night's sleep.[/center][/font][hr]

[Peace Patriot]

19. But are the Titanics clever enough to make ziplock bags?

And did it sink them?

[NealK]

20. Lol, The Titanics.

[seveneyes]

21. We make polypropylene from methanol

So it would make sense that a methane rich environment could produce such a compound.

[penultimate]

23. Wow, so our pollution has already got to the edge of solar system? Humans must be destroyed NOW!

(kidding... except for the last part)

[PD Turk]

25. DuPont announces mission to Titan Nt

[donco]

27. HHmm...isn't

propylene one of the ingredients in Twinkies?

[kestrel91316]

28. Just great. Here we are trying to avoid evil plastic, and it turns out that

other planets are made of the effing stuff!!

[kestrel91316]

29. Dead link. NASA.gov is gone now, too.

[Judi Lynn]

30. Oh, yeah! We'd better get used to this, unfortunately! Here's another article:

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

[CreekDog]

31. Of course. It's right next to where they make Saturns

[JI7]

32. isn't Titan one of the places where it is thought life could exist