Air conditioning eventually reach the upper atmosphere. Once the refrigerant reaches the stratosphere, UV radiation from the Sun homolytically cleaves the chlorine-carbon bond, yielding a chlorine radical. These chlorine radicals catalyze the breakdown of ozone into diatomic oxygen, depleting the ozone layer that shields the Earth's surface from strong UV radiation. Each chlorine radical remains active as a catalyst until it binds with another radical, forming a stable molecule and quenching the chain reaction. Prior to 1994, most automotive air conditioning systems used R-12 as a refrigerant. It was replaced with R-134a refrigerant, which has no ozone depletion potential. Old R-12 systems
S/2004 S 6 dissipate on a timescale of years or months. Notably, an imaging sequence covering an entire orbital period at 4 km resolution taken on November 15, 2004 (soon after 's discovery) failed to recover the object, while it has been seen again later. The lighting conditions in 's part of the orbit were different during these two observations, however, with the discovery being made when the region was strongly backlit by the sun. A suggested resolution of the absence in November is that 's visibility is primarily due to a diffuse cloud of fine dust that is much brighter in forward