Given the task definition and input, reply with output. In this task, you are given a text of many news articles seperated by special token "|||||". Your task is to summarize them.

By peering into the hydrocarbon haze of Saturn’s moon Titan, NASA’s Cassini spacecraft has made the first off-world detection of a molecule called propylene, one of the most important starting products of the modern plastic industry. 
  
 Propylene, also known as propene, is one of the simplest organic compounds, made from a chain of three carbons. On Earth, it is a byproduct of oil refining and other fossil fuel extraction processes. Humans use it as a raw material in creating many of the products in our world, including films, storage containers, and car bumpers. The molecule is also created naturally by some tree species and given off as a combustion product in forest fires. 
  
 Cassini detected propylene using its infrared spectrometer. Finding the molecule wasn’t too surprising — Titan is full of many different hydrocarbons including methane and propane — but spotting propylene has thus far eluded scientists. Previous missions had found other organic molecules with a three-carbon backbone, yet propylene was missing. Since it’s the lightest and simplest of this chemical family, its non-existence on Titan was perplexing. Researchers used Cassini’s data to sift through the hydrocarbon noise and finally extract propylene’s relatively weak signal. Their results appear today in the Astrophysical Journal Letters. 
  
 The finding highlights the alien chemistry of Saturn’s giant moon. Titan is a weird and wet world much like our own, except that hydrocarbon rain falls into ethane seas instead of water. Scientists have long wanted to explore such bodies with a boat-like probe but are thwarted by NASA’s plunging budget and the expense of mounting such an expedition. 
  
 Still, sales of propylene on Earth are estimated at $90 billion annually. But private industry probably won’t fly to Titan to suck out its hydrocarbon riches any time soon. Such a scheme would probably run afoul of international treaties, which call for protecting the environment of other worlds. Fossil fuels are also likely to remain relatively cheap, plentiful, and easy enough to access for many years that space-based extraction of them will remain laughable. ||||| PASADENA, Calif. - NASA's Cassini spacecraft has detected propylene, a chemical used to make food-storage containers, car bumpers and other consumer products, on Saturn's moon Titan. 
  
 This is the first definitive detection of the plastic ingredient on any moon or planet, other than Earth. 
  
 A small amount of propylene was identified in Titan's lower atmosphere by Cassini's composite infrared spectrometer (CIRS). This instrument measures the infrared light, or heat radiation, emitted from Saturn and its moons in much the same way our hands feel the warmth of a fire. 
  
 Propylene is the first molecule to be discovered on Titan using CIRS. By isolating the same signal at various altitudes within the lower atmosphere, researchers identified the chemical with a high degree of confidence. Details are presented in a paper in the Sept. 30 edition of the Astrophysical Journal Letters. 
  
 "This chemical is all around us in everyday life, strung together in long chains to form a plastic called polypropylene," said Conor Nixon, a planetary scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., and lead author of the paper. "That plastic container at the grocery store with the recycling code 5 on the bottom -- that's polypropylene." 
  
  
  
 CIRS can identify a particular gas glowing in the lower layers of the atmosphere from its unique thermal fingerprint. The challenge is to isolate this one signature from the signals of all other gases around it. 
  
  
  
 The detection of the chemical fills in a mysterious gap in Titan observations that dates back to NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft and the first-ever close flyby of this moon in 1980. 
  
  
  
 Voyager identified many of the gases in Titan's hazy brownish atmosphere as hydrocarbons, the chemicals that primarily make up petroleum and other fossil fuels on Earth. 
  
  
  
 On Titan, hydrocarbons form after sunlight breaks apart methane, the second-most plentiful gas in that atmosphere. The newly freed fragments can link up to form chains with two, three or more carbons. The family of chemicals with two carbons includes the flammable gas ethane. Propane, a common fuel for portable stoves, belongs to the three-carbon family. 
  
  
  
 Previously, Voyager found propane, the heaviest member of the three-carbon family, and propyne, one of the lightest members. But the middle chemicals, one of which is propylene, were missing. 
  
  
  
 As researchers continued to discover more and more chemicals in Titan's atmosphere using ground- and space-based instruments, propylene was one that remained elusive. It was finally found as a result of more detailed analysis of the CIRS data. 
  
  
  
 "This measurement was very difficult to make because propylene's weak signature is crowded by related chemicals with much stronger signals," said Michael Flasar, Goddard scientist and principal investigator for CIRS. "This success boosts our confidence that we will find still more chemicals long hidden in Titan's atmosphere." 
  
  
  
 Cassini's mass spectrometer, a device that looks at the composition of Titan's atmosphere, had hinted earlier that propylene might be present in the upper atmosphere. However, a positive identification had not been made. 
  
  
  
 "I am always excited when scientists discover a molecule that has never been observed before in an atmosphere," said Scott Edgington, Cassini's deputy project scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "This new piece of the puzzle will provide an additional test of how well we understand the chemical zoo that makes up Titan's atmosphere." 
  
  
  
 The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The CIRS team is based at Goddard. 
  
  
  
 For more information about the Cassini mission, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/cassini and http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov . 
  
  
  
 News Media Contact 
  
 Jia-Rui C. Cook 818-354-0850Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.jccook@jpl.nasa.govDwayne Brown 202-358-1726NASA Headquarters, Washingtondwayne.c.brown@nasa.govNancy Neal-Jones/Elizabeth ZubritskyGoddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.301-286-0039/301-614-5438nancy.n.jones@nasa.gov / elizabeth.a.zubritsky@nasa.gov2013-295 ||||| Image caption Conditions at Titan make for some interesting atmospheric chemistry 
  
 The Cassini probe has detected propene, or propylene, on Saturn's moon Titan. 
  
 On Earth, this molecule, which comprises three carbon atoms and six hydrogen atoms, is a constituent of many plastics. 
  
 It is the first definitive detection of the plastic ingredient on any moon or planet, other than our home world, says the US space agency (Nasa). 
  
 The discovery, made by Cassini's infrared spectrometer, is reported in Astrophysical Journal Letters. 
  
 "This chemical is all around us in everyday life, strung together in long chains to form a plastic called polypropylene," said Conor Nixon, a Nasa planetary scientist from the agency's Goddard Space Flight Center. A classic example would be the plastic boxes used to store food in kitchens worldwide. 
  
 Titan is dominated by hydrocarbons - principally methane, which after nitrogen is the most common component of the atmosphere. 
  
 Sunlight drives reactions that break apart the methane, allowing the fragments to join up and form even bigger molecules. 
  
 Other common species seen at the moon as a result are propane, which on Earth is used in portable cooking equipment, and ethane, which is the raw material for another ubiquitous plastic - polyethylene. 
  
 But the likes of methane, propene, propane and ethane are dwarfed by some truly colossal hydrocarbons that have been detected in Titan's atmosphere. 
  
 When the effects of ultraviolet light are combined with the bombardment from particles driven in Saturn's magnetic field, it becomes possible to cook up some very exotic chemistry. 
  
 Cassini's plasma spectrometer has seen evidence for hydrocarbons with an atomic mass thousands of times heavier than a single hydrogen atom. ||||| • 
  
 Plastic is pretty much a metaphor for unnatural—a plastic smile, plastic surgery, fake plastic trees. Even when the Curiosity rover discovered plastic on Mars last year, that turned out to be fake, too. 
  
 In an authenticity-obsessed world, plastic has gotten a bad rap (or is that wrap?). Plastic is made up of organic molecules—organic meaning there’s carbon in them, not that it was raised cruelty-free under fair trade conditions. If your non-chemistry-class definition of organic requires that a plant or animal be involved, know that the petrochemicals which provide the base stock for what we commonly consider plastic is made up of the carcasses of ancient micro-organisms. 
  
 Cassini’s discovery carries with it a handful of firsts, including the first definitive discovery of plastics outside of Earth, and the first molecule that Cassini’s hard-working “composite infrared spectrometer” has discovered on Titan. 
  
 Anyway, while the things we might recognize as plastic are generally synthetic, there are naturally occurring polymers (all plastics are polymers, but not all polymers are plastics)—cellulose, rubber, amber, and shellac. And there are even a few naturally occurring plastics, like animal horns and tortoiseshell. But while pedants will be happy with these distinctions, none pass muster as, you know, plastic. It’s perhaps a Potter Stewart-ian distinction, but, well, I’m not buying Tide packaged in turtles. 
  
 But now science has discovered plastic … in space. And blessedly, it’s not pollution from Earth (we’re not counting space junk). Using its on-board spectrometer, the Cassini spacecraft has discovered propylene in the lower atmosphere of Saturn’s moon Titan. And propylene (A.K.A. propene or methylethylene) is by anyone’s definition plastic. As Conor Nixon, the lead author on a paper describing this find, explained in a release, “This chemical is all around us in everyday life, strung together in long chains to form a plastic called polypropylene. That plastic container at the grocery store with the recycling code 5 on the bottom — that’s polypropylene.” Heck, here on Earth, even some trees release propylene naturally. 
  
 Cassini’s discovery carries with it a handful of firsts, including the first definitive discovery of plastics outside of Earth, and the first molecule that Cassini’s hard-working “composite infrared spectrometer” has discovered on Titan. But this first doesn’t carry with it indication of something intelligent synthesizing plastics on Titan. Based on chemical analyses dating back to Voyager 1’s flyby in the 1980s, scientists have known that Titan’s atmosphere is a hodge-podge of hydrocarbons—JPL’s Scott Edginton described it as a “chemical zoo.” Propylene was actually something scientists expected to find since its chemical kissing cousins were already known to be present. 
  
 Things like amino acids, the building blocks of life as we know it, have been found floating through the cosmos, possibly as interstellar ride-sharers. It’s all somewhat reminiscent of Douglas Adams’ Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Universe universe, where planets of mattresses and ballpoints cavort naturally: “Very few things actually get manufactured these days, because in an infinitely large Universe such as, for instance, the one in which we live, most things one could possibly imagine, and a lot of things one would rather not, grow somewhere.” |||||

Earth and Saturn now have something in common: plastic. NASA's Cassini spacecraft detected the molecule propylene on Saturn's moon Titan, and propylene is one of the basic ingredients of modern plastic here on Earth, reports the BBC. It's the first extraterrestrial plastic ingredient ever found, reports NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which uses this quote from one of its scientists to help mere mortals grasp the discovery: "This chemical is all around us in everyday life, strung together in long chains to form a plastic called polypropylene. That plastic container at the grocery store with the recycling code 5 on the bottom—that's polypropylene." So is this a stunning discovery? Far from it, explains Pacific Standard. Propylene is a hydrocarbon, and scientists have long known that Titan is teeming with other hydrocarbons such as methane and propane. "Propylene was actually something scientists expected to find since its chemical kissing cousins were already known to be present," writes Michael Todd. And, sorry, entrepreneurs, Wired shoots a hole in your ambitious plan to zip over to Saturn to harvest the stuff. Not only would that probably violate international treaties set up to protect other worlds, but "fossil fuels are also likely to remain relatively cheap, plentiful, and easy enough to access for many years that space-based extraction of them will remain laughable," writes Adam Mann. (For a more Earth-bound NASA development, click to see its image of newborn island off Pakistan.)