NASA's Cassini spacecraft has detected a plastic on Titan, a moon of the planet Saturn. It is propylene, a ubiquitous chemical in our daily lives that is used to make food storage containers, car bumpers, and other consumer products. This is the first time that a component of plastic has been detected outside the Earth.
Propylene has been identified in Titan's lower atmosphere by Cassini's Composite Infrared Spectrometer (CIRS). This instrument measures the infrared light or thermal radiation emitted by Saturn and its moons, in the same way that the heat of a fire is felt in the hands.
Propylene is the first molecule to be discovered on Titan using CIRS. By isolating the same signal at different heights, within the lower atmosphere, researchers have identified the chemical with a high degree of confidence, as explained in an article published in 'Astrophysical Journal Letters'.
The Voyager probe had already identified many of the gases in Titan's hazy brown atmosphere, such as hydrocarbons, the chemicals that primarily make up oil and other fossil fuels on Earth.
