Comets Stink

[NQ6U]

According to scientists at the ESA, if you could smell a comet, it would be like sharing a barn with drunk and a dozen rotten eggs. Or, in other words, like a typical frat house.

More info here. (http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2014/10/24/358364942/european-scientists-conclude-that-distant-comet-smells-terrible)

[K7SGJ]

I think a comet hit our laundry basket.

[VE7DCW]

I thought this was a discussion on the Mercury Comet..... and yes they really do stink! :mrgreen:

[K7SGJ]

I thought this was a discussion on the Mercury Comet..... and yes they really do stink! :mrgreen:

They don't usually run long enough to stink all that much.

[VE7DCW]

They don't usually run long enough to stink all that much.

My mother used to own a 5th generation 1973 Mercury Comet....... it was a POS that stank really badly......it ran long enough! :yes:

[n2ize]

It's got a high percentage of H2S (Aitch Tu Ess) on board so its certainly not going to smell like a rose. More like a swamp.

[K7SGJ]

It's got a high percentage of H2S (Aitch Tu Ess) on board so its certainly not going to smell like a rose. More like a swamp.


And (Et Tu Brute) to you fiddleman

[NQ6U]

http://i.imgur.com/7KN2T34.gif

[n2ize]

When I was working in the Chemistry lab we sometimes needed to generate H2S gas for experiments. We used to buy these vials called "Aitch Tu Ess" generators. They were basically glass vials with cork stoppers containing a mixture of sulphur, carbon, and parrafin. You would gently heat the mixture in a stoppered test tube with a vent tube to release the gas into whatever vessel you were reacting with the gas. One day I brought one of the cartridges home and I removed a very small amount of the powder and heated it over a cigarette lighter. It generated such a stink that we had to open all the windows and clear the house for at least an hour. Hydrogen sulphide really stinks even in tiny concentrations.

For you antique electronics buffs, did you ever have a selenium rectifier overheat ?? The stench is Selenium Sulphide gas, and IMHO stinks even worst than H2S. Smells like something dead and rotting.

BTW I should mention, both gases are extremely toxic.

[VE7DCW]

When I was working in the Chemistry lab we sometimes needed to generate H2S gas for experiments. We used to buy these vials called "Aitch Tu Ess" generators. They were basically glass vials with cork stoppers containing a mixture of sulphur, carbon, and parrafin. You would gently heat the mixture in a stoppered test tube with a vent tube to release the gas into whatever vessel you were reacting with the gas. One day I brought one of the cartridges home and I removed a very small amount of the powder and heated it over a cigarette lighter. It generated such a stink that we had to open all the windows and clear the house for at least an hour. Hydrogen sulphide really stinks even in tiny concentrations.

For you antique electronics buffs, did you ever have a selenium rectifier overheat ?? The stench is Selenium Sulphide gas, and IMHO stinks even worst than H2S. Smells like something dead and rotting.

BTW I should mention, both gases are extremely toxic.

When I was in Fort St.John (the more or less center for the Natural gas drilling industry of British Columbia) for a couple of months in 1986,I met a guy who was a driller who by accident was hit by H2S when they hit a sour gas well.He was fortunate not to be killed by the Hydrogen Sulphide gas,but it did leave him with some brain damage.......H2S is serious stuff in the Natural gas business! :shock:

[NQ6U]

He was fortunate not to be killed by the Hydrogen Sulphide gas, but it did leave him with some brain damage.

So he became a truck driver.

[VE7DCW]

So he became a truck driver.

That is correct..... :mrgreen:

[NQ6U]

What else could he do?

[K7SGJ]

What else could he do?

Travel to Minnesota and Las Vegas, working on special equipment.

[NQ6U]

Travel to Minnesota and Las Vegas, working on special equipment.

He was brain damaged, not brain dead.

[K7SGJ]

Sorry, I guess I missed that part.

[n2ize]

When I was in Fort St.John (the more or less center for the Natural gas drilling industry of British Columbia) for a couple of months in 1986,I met a guy who was a driller who by accident was hit by H2S when they hit a sour gas well.He was fortunate not to be killed by the Hydrogen Sulphide gas,but it did leave him with some brain damage.......H2S is serious stuff in the Natural gas business! :shock:

The only good thing about H2S gas (aside from favorable chemical reactions) is that it stinks like hell. Even in tiny concentrations it is strong and putrid. Long before it reaches toxic concentrations the stench is usually so unbearable that any living creature, human or beast, will get the hell away from it long before they inhale a toxic amount. But I understand, in the gas mining industry it is very possible to be overcome by a toxic amount before you realize what hit you.

[kb2vxa]

Professor Farnsworth invented the smellescope, now Denver Police are using it to sniff out people's weed! OH NOES!