Interstellar space may seem like an empty void but it is actually filled with a strange haze of toxic grease, new research suggests.
Experts created a synthetic version of interstellar dust taken from asteroids and analysed it to work out exactly what it's made of.
They discovered that the Milky Way alone contains enough 'space grease' to fill 40 trillion trillion trillion packs of butter.
That's equivalent to 10 billion trillion trillion tonnes of grease.
There is so much of it, that the windscreen of a future spaceship travelling through interstellar space will likely get a sticky coating, researchers claim.
The gloopy material is one of two forms of carbon - the element responsible for the stars, planets and organic lifeforms - found bound to hydrogen in space.
Researchers now hope to discover more about the second form, which would let them work out exactly how much carbon there is in the universe.
Researchers from the team were quick to dispel the comparison with anything edible, however.
'This space grease is not the kind of thing you'd want to spread on a slice of toast,' said Professor Tim Schmidt, from UNSW Sydney.
'It's dirty, likely toxic and only forms in the environment of interstellar space - and our laboratory.
'It's also intriguing that organic material of this kind - material that gets incorporated into planetary systems - is so abundant.'
Organic matter of different kinds contains carbon, an element considered essential for life.
There is real uncertainty over its abundance, however, and only half the carbon scientists predict in interstellar space is found in its pure form.
The rest is chemically bound with hydrogen in two main forms. The first is a grease-like substance, known as aliphatic carbon, or 'greasy' carbon.
The second is a gaseous form of naphthalene that smells similar to traditional mothballs, which were made using the chemical.
Experts mimicked the process by which these organic molecules are synthesised in the outflows of carbon stars.
They did so by expanding a carbon-containing plasma, a high temperature gas found in stars, into a vacuum at low temperature.
The material was collected and then analysed using a combination of techniques.
Using magnetic resonance and spectroscopy - splitting light into its constituent wavelengths - they were able to determine how strongly the material absorbed light with a certain infrared wavelength, a marker for the greasy aliphatic form of carbon.
The team now wants to determine the abundance of the mothball-like carbon.
More at: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencete...Milky-Way.html
Site Information
About Us
- RonPaulForums.com is an independent grassroots outfit not officially connected to Ron Paul but dedicated to his mission. For more information see our Mission Statement.
Connect With Us