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Methane is a rather unstable gas when exposed to sunlight, and it is easily broken up into its organic constituents after moderate exposure times, chemists say. Finding it on other planets is an equally difficult task for the same reasons, and that is why astronomers could not believe their eyes when it was clearly established that the moon Titan actually holds the hydrocarbon. How the body got its atmosphere was however another question, and one that researchers scratched their heads over for a long time. Now, they believe they might have come up with an explanation for the event. While, back on Earth, methane is released in the atmosphere from humans, animal reflexes, volcanoes, hydrothermal vents, and some reactions between rocks and water, this is not the case on either Mars or Saturn's Titan, the only other two places in the solar system where the gas has been discovered. While, in the case of the Red Planet, the origins of the gas have recently been established not !
to come from any living organisms, Titan remains the grand prize. Its dense, nitrogen atmosphere is laden with methane, Technology Review informs. The thing that has astronomers and geologists wondering is the origin of the gas. Given that sunlight constantly breaks it apart, and that observations revealed a somewhat constant concent...
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http://news.softpedia.com/news/New-Theory-on-How-Titan-039-s-Atmosphere-Formed-118531.shtml
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