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Astronomers Probe Mysterious Gas In Titan's Atmosphere

Posted by samzenpus on from the up-in-the-air dept.

sciencehabit writes "A fluorescent glow high in the atmosphere of Titan, Saturn's largest moon, signifies the presence of a gas that astronomers have yet to identify. The glow appears only on the daytime side of the moon at altitudes between 600 and 1250 kilometers, with the largest intensity occurring at an altitude of about 950 km. Detailed analyses reveal that the glow doesn't stem from a problem with the Saturn-orbiting Cassini craft, and it isn't associated with methane or any of the other hydrocarbons already identified as constituents of Titan's atmosphere."

2 of 104 comments (clear)

  1. No spectrograph? by Un+pobre+guey · · Score: 4, Interesting

    They don't have an emission spectrum that can be analyzed?

  2. Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon by Latinhypercube · · Score: 5, Interesting

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polycyclic_aromatic_hydrocarbon
    Origins of life PAH world hypothesis ...PAHs, subjected to interstellar medium (ISM) conditions, are transformed, through hydrogenation, oxygenation and hydroxylation, to more complex organics - "a step along the path toward amino acids and nucleotides, the raw materials of proteins and DNA, respectively".