LONDON, Nov. 29 (UPI) -- A British-led study has identified the presence of heavy negative ions in the upper regions of the atmosphere of Saturn's moon Titan.
Researchers at University College London said the discovery from data collected by the Cassini spacecraft was unexpected because of the lack of oxygen in Titan's atmosphere.
"Cassini's electron spectrometer has enabled us to detect negative ions which have 10,000 times the mass of hydrogen," said the study's lead author, Professor Andrew Coates at UCL's Mullard Space Science Laboratory. "Additional rings of carbon can build up on these ions, forming molecules called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, which may act as a basis for the earliest forms of life.
"Their existence poses questions about the processes involved in atmospheric chemistry and aerosol formation and we now think it most likely that these negative ions form in the upper atmosphere before moving closer to the surface, where they probably form the mist which shrouds the planet and which has hidden its secrets from us in the past."
The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of the U.S., European and Italian space agencies.
The discovery is reported in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.
