4 ms·
Boil off where? What would happen to the water vapor if it floats off the Earth into the vacuum of space? Pulled in by the Sun's gravity and forever lost?
by bluedevil2k 6y ago
Boil off where? What would happen to the water vapor if it floats off the Earth into the vacuum of space? Pulled in by the Sun's gravity and forever lost?
- ardit33 6y agoThink Venus.... Scorched surface and lots of hot gases above it
- bluedevil2k 6y agoThere's no water vapor on Venus though. At a certain point in the atmosphere, wouldn't it be cool enough and pressure low enough to make clouds still? Maybe they move around the Earth to the cool side away from the Sun?
- ben_w 6y agoWater disassociates into hydrogen and oxygen in UV light, and hydrogen gas move faster than escape velocity, even at current atmospheric temperatures. Ok, so it is more complicated than that, the speed of any atom or molecule is a Maxwellian distribution, but enough move fast enough that it’s an acceptable approximation, especially over these time scales.