4 ms·
What is the typical state of matter at 3 kelvin in deep space?
by enkid 5y ago
What is the typical state of matter at 3 kelvin in deep space?
- eloff 5y agoSolid. Everything except hydrogen and helium would be in a solid state I think.
- evanb 5y agoThat’s not obvious because of the ultra low pressure.
- bigyikes 5y agoAgreed. I haven’t thought about this stuff since taking gen chem in college, so I went and looked up the phase diagram for Neon, as an example. At low pressures, it looks like as little as 15 Kelvin is enough to make Neon a gas.
- Retric 5y agoHowever, deep space is 2.7 Kelvin. Though of course it gets much hotter near stars and even simply being inside a galaxy is enough to hit 10-20 Kelvin.
- Sharlin 5y agoMost matter in deep space is individual ions, atoms, or molecules, so has no well-defined phase. Then there's solid dust particles which are made of all sorts of stuff including silicates, organic compounds, and ices of different elements.