[website] For The Chemistry Minded: Daily Mail Fail

[6Foot2]

The Daily Mail website posted an item about colourful clouds seen above Abderdeenshire:

 

Link: The breathtaking 'rainbow UFO' clouds spotted high above Aberdeenshire | Mail Online

 

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/12/10/article-0-167194E3000005DC-523_634x438.jpg

 

It is not the clouds that caught my attention but this little gem [caption below this picture]

 

http://i.snag.gy/nTahN.jpg

[clareq]

It's a long time since my Chemistry degree, but I can't get that equation to balance...

[6Foot2]

It's a long time since my Chemistry degree, but I can't get that equation to balance...

 

Thing is as reactants you have Methane [CH4] and Ozone [O3] and as the product [or one of the products] you have Chlorine [Cl2]

 

Chlorine is not found in the reactants and so cannot be one of the products.

 

It amused me anyway.

 

[Excuse the formulas as I don't know how to do subscript text here]

 

Edit: Some reader comments:

 

http://i.snag.gy/fbsUq.jpg

Edited December 10, 2012 by 6Foot2
Add a picture to the post.

[JJonas]

Polar stratospheric cloud - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

also from the comments...

 

UFO = unidentified flying object. This is not unidentified, it is not flying and is not an object. well done DM.

Edited December 10, 2012 by JJonas

[X-13]

So... It's chlorine gas?

 

Acid rain, chlorine gas clouds... Nature hates us.

[Pottsey]

Polar stratospheric cloud - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

also from the comments...

 

UFO = unidentified flying object. This is not unidentified, it is not flying and is not an object. well done DM.

Thats a pretty good comment from over at DM. I do not mean to be picky but it’s a cloud which means it’s an object and since when do clouds not fly? Isn’t flying pretty much all clouds do? That and make us wet sometimes.

[X-13]

since when do clouds not fly? Isn’t flying pretty much all clouds do? That and make us wet sometimes.

 

Clouds don't fly. They float. [Or fall with style... I'm not sure.]

 

Also, keep your fetishes to yourself. I don't want to be reading about how clouds make you wet sometimes.

[JJonas]

lol

 

+rep

[CyberNerd]

Thing is as reactants you have Methane [CH4] and Ozone [O3] and as the product [or one of the products] you have Chlorine [Cl2]

 

Chlorine is not found in the reactants and so cannot be one of the products.

 

It amused me anyway.

 

[Excuse the formulas as I don't know how to do subscript text here]

 

Edit: Some reader comments:

 

http://i.snag.gy/fbsUq.jpg

 

I think they are getting methane and CFC's mixed up.

There is a link between them - from my environmental chemistry days, CFC's react under UV light CF2Cl2 + hv -> Cl + CF2Cl and ozone is destroyed by the chlorine O3 + Cl <-> ClO + O2

 

So if they are Chlorine clouds ? then it's CFC's reacting with light.

[6Foot2]

I think they are getting methane and CFC's mixed up.

There is a link between them - from my environmental chemistry days, CFC's react under UV light CF2Cl2 + hv -> Cl + CF2Cl and ozone is destroyed by the chlorine O3 + Cl <-> ClO + O2

 

So if they are Chlorine clouds ? then it's CFC's reacting with light.

 

Probably true but a little journalistic investigation/fact checking would have eliminated this error [it can't even be called a "schoolboy error" It's basic Chemistry that you can't make Chlorine from Methane and Ozone]