Using a new hybrid breed of computational and experimental chemistry, an international team of chemists was able to solve a puzzle that has been dubbed a ‘Holy Grail reaction’ and devise a method for catalyzing reactions with methane. As organic chemistry evolved, techniques for catalyzing hydrocarbons advanced and one by one a method was created for their manipulation. Ethane, propane, butane, pentane – all the alkanes followed a similar pattern and their reactions had predictable results. Only one alkane-methane- refused to follow suit and this confounded chemists for decades. Methane had been just too difficult to work with; its C-H bond could not be manipulated...
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Two robotic spacecraft on Monday began a 7-month journey to Mars as part of a European-Russian unmanned space mission to sniff out leads to life on the Red Planet. Russia’s Proton rocket carrying the spacecraft launched into an overcast sky at the Russian-operated Baikonur cosmodrome in the Kazakh steppe at 0931 GMT according to plan ExoMars 2016, a collaboration between ESA and Roscosmos, is the first part of a 2-phase exploration aiming to answer questions about the existence of life on Mars.
With its suite of high-tech instruments, the Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO), is expected to arrive at the Red Planet in October ...
Read MoreThe new “extended color” view of Pluto – taken by New Horizons’ wide-angle Ralph/Multispectral Visual Imaging Camera (MVIC) shows the extraordinarily rich color palette of Pluto...
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