Space Is Brimming With Grease—And There's Enough in the Milky Way to Make 40 Trillion Trillion Trillion Packs of Butter

The Milky Way is full of toxic space grease, according to a new study. The Milky Way is full of toxic, grease-like molecules, according to astronomers from Australia's University of New South Wales (UNSW) and Turkey's Ege University. They then analyzed the resulting material to determine the amount of aliphatic, or grease-like carbon, that was produced. Using this ratio, the scientists calculated that in the Milky Way there is an estimated 10 billion trillion trillion tons of space grease, or enough for 40 trillion trillion trillion packs of butter. "This space grease is not the kind of thing you'd want to spread on a slice of toast!" Schmidt said.

The Milky Way Is Full of Toxic, Sticky Grease

The Milky Way Is Full of Toxic, Sticky GreaseLook closely. The cosmic dust captured in this infrared photo of the Milky Way may be brimming with space grease. Swirled amid the dust, soot and electromagnetic radiation that sits among the stars of the Milky Way, there is also a whole mess of toxic grease. Precisely how much grease is out there lubing up the Milky Way? From this plasma came a dust byproduct sort of like the interstellar dust where space grease spreads.

Study Finds Milky Way Is Full of Space Grease

as mentioned in It turns out there's more in space than just stars and planets. The scientists were surprised to discover the amount of space grease was a factor of five higher than what had been recorded in the past. The estimated amount of aliphatic carbon is 10 billion trillion trillion tons, which is enough to fill 40 trillion trillion trillion packs of butter, CNN reported. Tim Schmidt, co-author of the study and professor at the University of New South Wales told CNN that this material is "like greasy soot." "It's not a pure substance, it's not biological," Schmidt told CNN.

The Milky Way Is Full of Potentially Toxic "Space Grease"

Moreover, they contend that "space grease" is common across the Milky Way. Scaling up to the entire Milky Way, there's an estimated 10 billion trillion trillion tonnes of greasy carbon in the galaxy. Advertisement - Continue Reading Below"This space grease is not the kind of thing you'd want to spread on a slice of toast!" Maybe one day we will find a way to use the space grease to lubricate our interstellar ships. Until then, the greasy space carbon adds another piece to the puzzle of planetary formation across the galaxy.

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