Food For Thought: "Star Tar"!

[Boggy Man]

There has been talk about a tarlike substance called tholins being present on Pluto, Saturn's moon Titan, and elsewhere.

From http://www.futurity.org/pluto-red-974022/ :

Carl Sagan and ‘star-tar’

First of all, why is Pluto red? Scientists think it is colored by particles called tholins, or star-tar, created in the atmosphere when methane interacts with the sun’s ultraviolet light to form a mixture of complex hydrocarbons. As the haze particles clump and grow heavier, they fall out of the atmosphere and coat the planet’s surface.

Carl Sagan first called attention to tholins in the 1970s when he tried to create chemistry in his laboratory that might explain the red in the Great Red Spot of Jupiter, but they’re also found elsewhere in the solar system, most notably on Saturn’s moon Titan, where there might be dune fields of tholins.

Imagine an astronaut landing on a planet, only to get stuck and sucked into the tar!

[sixgunzloaded]

Yay!! We still love you, Pluto, even though they took away your planet status!
But I thought the Tholians only existed on Star Trek... HA!! ...sorry... I couldn't resist.

[Fred588]

There has been talk about a tarlike substance called tholins being present on Pluto, Saturn's moon Titan, and elsewhere.

From http://www.futurity.org/pluto-red-974022/ :

Carl Sagan and ‘star-tar’

First of all, why is Pluto red? Scientists think it is colored by particles called tholins, or star-tar, created in the atmosphere when methane interacts with the sun’s ultraviolet light to form a mixture of complex hydrocarbons. As the haze particles clump and grow heavier, they fall out of the atmosphere and coat the planet’s surface.

Carl Sagan first called attention to tholins in the 1970s when he tried to create chemistry in his laboratory that might explain the red in the Great Red Spot of Jupiter, but they’re also found elsewhere in the solar system, most notably on Saturn’s moon Titan, where there might be dune fields of tholins.

Imagine an astronaut landing on a planet, only to get stuck and sucked into the tar!

I'd rather imagine the sorority at the trying to do a treasure hunt in the forest where the leftover wastes from the laboratory were dumped. The tholins that failed to form in the lab perhaps just needed a bit more time and now they have filled up the low spots.