The rules of chemistry on Saturn's largest moon, Titan, may have to be rewritten thanks to a new discovery that shows how frozen crystals of hydrogen cyanide can mix with liquid hydrocarbons, in a combination that had not been thought possible until now.
Experiments at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Southern California, coupled with computer simulations performed by researchers at the Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden, have shown how molecules of liquid ethane and methane, which fill the seas and lakes on Titan, can mix with crystals of hydrogen cyanide, which is frozen in the moon's frigid minus 179 degrees Celsius temperature.
