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Titan Could Power 150 Billion Labor Day Barbecues



 
 
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Default Titan Could Power 150 Billion Labor Day Barbecues

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/features.cfm?feature=2305

Saturn Moon Could Power 150 Billion Labor Day Barbecues
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
September 04, 2009

Since its discovery by Dutch astronomer Christiaan Huygens in 1655,
Saturn's most massive moon, Titan, has been known as a place of
mystery
and intrigue. The large, cloud-enshrouded moon is such a scientific
enigma that for the past five years, it has been targeted by NASA's
Cassini spacecraft with more than 60 probing flybys. One of its latest
findings could be a valuable asset to future generations of space
explorers hunting for materials to whip up a Labor Day barbecue.

"Titan's atmosphere is extremely rich in an assortment of hydrocarbon
chemicals, including propane, which we use to fill our barbecue
tanks,"
said Cassini scientist Conor Nixon of the University of Maryland,
College Park. "Titan's atmospheric inventory would fuel about 150
billion barbecue cookouts, enough for several thousand years of Labor
Days."

For those who are burger, barbecue or Titan challenged, propane is a
three-carbon alkane (a chemical compound consisting of carbon and
hydrogen), that is non-toxic and heavier than air. With its low
boiling
point of minus 43.6 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 42 degrees Centigrade),
propane vaporizes as soon as it is released from its pressurized
container. Here on Earth, propane is commonly used as a fuel for
forklifts, flamethrowers, residential central heating, portable
stoves,
hot air balloons, and - of course - barbecues. On other worlds propane
is an untapped resource.

This gas of many terrestrial uses was first discovered in Titan's
atmosphere back in 1980 when NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft flew past the
Saturnian system. Over the years, both ground and space-based
instruments have added to the research, but accurately quantifying the
amount of propane on Titan has proved elusive. Then, in 2004, the
Cassini spacecraft entered orbit around Saturn.

Measuring the amount of propane on Titan is important to scientists
because the gas is a very complex molecule, and its signature in the
infrared spectrum is close to those of several molecules scientists
are
hoping to discover in Titan's atmosphere.

"It was not so much that measuring propane was our endgame, but it
helps
enormously in our hunt for other complex molecules," said Nixon.
"These
include pyrimidines that are potential building blocks for biological
molecules, such as the nuceleobases of our DNA." If we can detect them
on Titan, that would be very significant."

Propane on Titan was measured using data from Cassini's Composite
Infrared Spectrometer instrument. During multiple flybys of the moon
between June 2004 and June 2008, the instrument measured infrared
light
from the edge of Titan's atmosphere. After a detailed analysis of the
gas's characteristic 'emission bands' or signature, using computer
predictions backed by the latest laboratory research into its infrared
spectrum, the Composite Infrared Spectrometer team came up with an
estimate of the amount of propane in Titan's atmosphere So exactly how
much propane does it take to fire 150 billion cookouts?

"We estimate there are nearly 700 million barrels of propane on Titan,
said Nixon. "That is enough to fill six-billion 20-pound tanks of
liquefied propane gas. It sounds like a huge amount, but that would
satisfy total U.S. consumption of propane for only 18 months."

Which still leaves, with regards to Saturn's biggest moon, one Labor
Day
staple still to be determined. How many hamburgers could future
generations of outer-planet explorers grill using Titan's atmospheric
propane?

"A dozen at a time, that's two trillion hamburgers," said Cassini's
Nixon, "assuming you stop at medium-well."

Nixon is the lead author on a paper about propane on Titan to be
published in an upcoming issue of Planetary and Space Science.

The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the
European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Cassini
orbiter
was designed, developed and assembled at JPL. JPL manages the mission
for the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in
Washington.
Cassini's Composite Infrared Spectrometer team is based at NASA's
Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.

More information about the Cassini mission is available at
http://www.nasa.gov/cassini or http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov .

 




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