In an episode of animated series Futurama, Professor Farnsworth unveiled a contraption known as the ‘Smell-O-Scope’, which let users ‘smell’ distant stars and planets.
Although billed as a fictional device, Nasa scientists claim to have developed a similar system and have used it capture the ‘flavours’ of Saturn’s moon Titan.
By replicating Titan’s atmosphere in a lab, they were able to work out what Titan’s atmosphere is made from, and the technique could be used to discover the composition of other worlds as well.
In the experiment, researchers at Nasa’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland recreated Titan’s atmosphere in a lab by mixing different gases thought to make up its hazy exterior.
Two of these, namely nitrogen and methane, were previously known, but the third component that had been detected was a mystery.
Through a method of trial-and-error, they eventually found their best attempts at mimicking the atmosphere occurred when their third gas was benzene — most commonly found in gasoline.
The process was not entirely dissimilar to how a chef tastes a dish and works out what ingredients were used in the recipe.
By trying different gases, the researchers were able to create an artificial atmosphere that matched the signature of Titan’s real atmosphere.
Benzene is what is known as an aromatic hydrocarbon, and it’s a sweet-smelling compound.
However, the researchers warned that because of Titan’s immense surface pressure, people would have a hard time smelling it on the surface.
‘Now we can say that this material has a strong aromatic character, which helps us understand more about the complex mixture of molecules that makes up Titan’s haze,’ said Melissa Trainer, a planetary scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, Daily Mail informs.
