‘Bathtub Rings’: Saturn’s Moon Titan Might Be Encrusted With Strange, Unearthly Minerals

Eddie Gonzales Jr. – MessageToEagle.com – Scientists recreated Titan-like laboratory conditions and discovered strange, unearthly minerals not found on Earth, including a co-crystal made of solid acetylene and butane. The researchers refer to these minerals as “bathtub rings.”

“We have discovered a third molecular mineral that is stable in the same conditions present on the surface of Titan, a moon of Saturn.This molecular mineral is made up of acetylene and butane, two organic molecules that are produced in Titan’s atmosphere and fall down onto the surface,“  the researchers write in their paper.

A false-color, near infrared view of Titan’s northern hemisphere collected by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft showing the moon’s seas and lakes. Orange areas near some of them may be deposits of organic evaporite minerals left behind by receding liquid hydrocarbon. Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / Space Science Institute

The new mineral might be responsible for the bathtub rings {as that are suspected to exist around Titan’s hydrocarbon lakes, according to Morgan Cable of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory at the California Institute of Technology.

Saturn’s moon Titan has extremely cold temperatures, (-290 degrees Fahrenheit or -179 degrees Celsius). These temperatures form compounds like acetylene and butane to become solid and combine to form crystals. Titan’s lakes are filled with liquid hydrocarbons.

Researchers simulated Titan’s atmosphere and discovered the acetylene and butane co-crystal, which is probably a lot more common on Titan than benzene crystals, based on what’s known about the moon’s composition, Cable said, in a press release.

In the moon’s cold climate, the acetylene-butane co-crystals might form rings around the moon’s lakes as the liquid hydrocarbons evaporate and the minerals drop out — in the same way that salts can form crusts on the shores of Earth’s lakes and seas, according to Cable.

To confirm whether Titan has bathtub rings of co-crystals and other, undiscovered, hydrocarbon crystals, scientists will have to wait until a spacecraft can visit the shorelines of this moon, Cable said.

“We don’t know yet if we have these bathtub rings,” Cable said. “It’s hard to see through Titan’s hazy atmosphere.”

Written by Eddie Gonzales Jr. – MessageToEagle.com Staff