ETHANE

Pronunciation (US):

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does ethane mean? 

• ETHANE (noun)
  The noun ETHANE has 1 sense:

1. a colorless odorless alkane gas used as fuel

  Familiarity information: ETHANE used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• ETHANE (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A colorless odorless alkane gas used as fuel

Classified under:

Nouns denoting substances

Synonyms:

C2H6; ethane

Hypernyms ("ethane" is a kind of...):

hydrocarbon (an organic compound containing only carbon and hydrogen)

alkane; alkane series; methane series; paraffin; paraffin series (a series of non-aromatic saturated hydrocarbons with the general formula CnH(2n+2))

 Context examples 

Initial observations of the cloud system were consistent with small particles composed of ethane ice.

(NASA Finds Methane Ice Cloud in Titan's Stratosphere, NASA)

There they found a roughly equal mix of methane and ethane.

(Cassini Reveals Surprises with Titan's Lakes, NASA)

Either Ligeia Mare is replenished by fresh methane rainfall, or something is removing ethane from it.

(Cassini Explores a Methane Sea on Titan, NASA)

"The Cassini mission revealed that Titan is a geologically active world, where hydrocarbons like methane and ethane take the role that water has on Earth," Williams said.

(The First Global Geologic Map of Titan Completed, NASA)

A synthetic derivative of dithio-ethane sulfonate with uroprotective properties.

(Dimesna, NCI Thesaurus)

There is one big difference, though: On Earth such rivers, lakes and seas are filled with water, while on Titan it is primarily methane and ethane that flows through these liquid reservoirs.

(Dust Storms on Titan Spotted for the First Time, NASA)

During NASA's Cassini mission's final distant encounter with Saturn's giant moon Titan, the spacecraft captured the enigmatic moon's north polar landscape of lakes and seas, which are filled with liquid methane and ethane.

(Cassini's Final View of Titan's Northern Lakes and Seas, NASA)

But at Titan's frigid surface temperatures — roughly minus 292 degrees Fahrenheit — liquid methane and ethane, rather than water, dominate Titan's hydrocarbon equivalent of Earth's water.

(The Mysterious 'Lakes' on Saturn's Moon Titan, NASA)

But instead of water raining down from clouds and filling lakes and seas as on Earth, on Titan it's methane and ethane - hydrocarbons that we think of as gases but that behave as liquids in Titan's frigid climate.

(New Models Suggest Titan Lakes Are Explosion Craters, NASA)

Methylene chloride is primarily used as a solvent in paint removers, but is also used in aerosol formulations, as a solvent in the manufacture of pharmaceuticals, as a degreasing agent, in electronics manufacturing and as an ethane foam blowing agent.

(Methylene Chloride, NCI Thesaurus)