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ETHANE
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
A colorless odorless alkane gas used as fuel
Synonyms:
C2H6; ethane
Classified under:
Hypernyms ("ethane" is a kind of...):
hydrocarbon (an organic compound containing only carbon and hydrogen)
alkane; alkane series; methane series; paraffin; paraffin series (a series of non-aromatic saturated hydrocarbons with the general formula CnH(2n+2))
Context examples:
It is possible that the ethane ends up in the undersea crust, or that it somehow flows into the adjacent sea, Kraken Mare, but that will require further investigation.
(Cassini Explores a Methane Sea on Titan, NASA)
Other stratospheric clouds had been identified on Titan already, including a very thin, diffuse cloud of ethane, a chemical formed after methane breaks down.
(NASA Finds Methane Ice Cloud in Titan's Stratosphere, NASA)
Instead of water evaporating from seas, forming clouds and rain, Titan does it all with methane and ethane.
(Cassini Reveals Surprises with Titan's Lakes, NASA)
But instead of water raining down from clouds and filling lakes and seas as on Earth, on Titan what rains down is methane and ethane - hydrocarbons that we think of as gases but that behave as liquids in Titan's frigid climate.
(The First Global Geologic Map of Titan Completed, NASA)
Now, eight years after spotting this mysterious bit of atmospheric fluff, researchers have determined that it contains methane ice, which produces a much denser cloud than the ethane ice previously identified there.
(NASA Finds Methane Ice Cloud in Titan's Stratosphere, NASA)
