Oxygen in space

[Belial]

How does oxygen work in a zero gravity environment?

[Pascal Toussaint]

im no scientist but ill guess lol

either it disperse or the atoms merge with something else

do not believe me or else.

[Ins0mniac]

I'm not qualified in physics or chemistry, but I'm guessing gravity or it's absence wouldn't have much affect on oxygen.

Edited January 1, 2008 by Ins0mniac

[Belial]

But you can't have oxygen in a zero gravity environment, can you?

[Ins0mniac]

But you can't have oxygen in a zero gravity environment, can you?

I can't see why not.

Oxygen is just a gas. Gravity is the attraction of objects to other objects (which is only noticable if at least one object is very massive). I don't think they'd be mutually exclusive.

[Pascal Toussaint]

lets spray space with air so i can float and breath and lap at everyone down!!!

your welcome to come too!

[Belial]

So if you was to release oxygen into a space like environment what happens to the oxygen? What would hold it stable enough to use for humans?

EDITED FOR LEGAL REASONS.

Edited January 1, 2008 by belial

[Ins0mniac]

So if you was to release oxygen into a space like environment what happens to the oxygen? What would hold it stable enough to use for humans?

EDITED FOR LEGAL REASONS.

Well, I could be wrong, but I think the international space station has oxygen as well as a lack of gravity.

I think if you released oxygen into space it would spread out and disperse pretty quickly. But I guess maybe if you had a lot of it in particular area in space, humans could probably breathe it. It's an interesting idea.

I think the gravitational pull of things in space like planets and stars tend to attract oxygen and other gases a fair bit over the long term, which is why space is kinda sparse.

Edited January 1, 2008 by Ins0mniac

[Belial]

I understand that space stations have zero gravity and oxygen, but what i am asking does this have any effect on the oxygen within this environment, and could it be possible to have a oxygen zone within a zero gravity environment for humans to breath in safely, outside the confines of a space station?

A little far fetched but i like to think out of the box sometimes...

EDITED FOR LEGAL REASONS

Edited January 1, 2008 by belial

[Pascal Toussaint]

it woulb be impossible because:

the universe is ''endless''

oxygen is a gaz and tends to fill its container

and if they are no container, it will disperse everywere so it wont even be detectable.

we could put a tree somewere in space i guess....

[Picturesque Orion]

If you drop oxygen in space, and any other gas, it will expand all it can, if you payed attention in chemistry and physics class, all gases tend to expand and fill anything that is containing it, all gases tend to ocupate the maximun volume.

If you drop the oxygen in a 0 gravity enviroment, it will happen pretty much the same as it happens on Earth, the gas will expand till it fills what contains it, if nothing contains it then the gas will just keep expanding, and this doesn't only happen with oxygen but with any other gas.

To breathe oxygen it has to have a certain density and it has to be mixed with other gases, for example nitrogen (N2), right now you are not breathing oxigen alone, you are breathing other gases, pure oxygen is not healthy for the human body.

[Belial]

To breathe oxygen it has to have a certain density and it has to be mixed with other gases, for example nitrogen (N2), right now you are not breathing oxigen alone, you are breathing other gases, pure oxygen is not healthy for the human body.

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I understand that other gases are required for humans to breath, my question is merely 'out of the box'.

As for the original question: What happens to oxygen in a 0 gravity environment, anyone?

[Picturesque Orion]

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I understand that other gases are required for humans to breath, my question is merely 'out of the box'.

As for the original question: What happens to oxygen in a 0 gravity environment, anyone?

I already answered that question mate.

[Belial]

You have explained what happens to oxygen, thanks for that bud. But does anything happen to the oxygen molicules in any way, and if so how did science come up with the answer?

[Picturesque Orion]

You have explained what happens to oxygen, thanks for that bud. But does anything happen to the oxygen molicules in any way, and if so how did science come up with the answer?

No, nothing really happens to the molecules, the natural enviroment of matter is the vacum of space. In space you can find the three states of matter, solid, liquid, and gas.

My point is, just putting and oxygen molecule in space will not alter the molecule, but of course many other things can be done in space to alter the oxygen molecule.

[Ins0mniac]

To breathe oxygen it has to have a certain density and it has to be mixed with other gases, for example nitrogen (N2), right now you are not breathing oxigen alone, you are breathing other gases, pure oxygen is not healthy for the human body.

Normal air is only 21% oxygen but you CAN breathe pure oxygen. Just not over long periods of time. It's called oxygen toxicity, I think.

Astronauts breathe pure oxygen when they are out of their spacecraft and wearing space suits, deep sea divers sometimes have high levels of oxygen in their air mixtures and they also give pure oxygen to certain patients with breathing difficulties in hospitals, from what I remember.

[+DieChecker]

The form (gas, solid or liquid) is not affected by gravity, or the lack there of. I'm pretty sure they figured this out when they sent dogs and chimps up into space in the 1950's. Inside a space craft, or space station, air would be the same as here on Earth.

One point is, if you could get a humoungous amount of air into space, that the air pressure would likely be uniform instead of getting thinner as you go up, as on Earth. Also the air would be homogenous. So there would never be a cloud layer or smoke layer. The smoke or other gases would spread to be even across the whole area. There is no point in crawling along a wall or trying to get above the smoke if a zero gravity area was to catch fire. It would simply spread out in a sphere shape and fill the area, then adjust so the density was the same across the area.

I got A's in chemistry.

[GoRla]

well oxygen wouldn't exist in zero gravity becuase space is a vacume and if there would be oxygen it would be sucked away very quickly and disperse in space in a very quick manner, unless ofcourse you have an oxygen pumping machine that countinuesly pumps oxygen in an open space envoirnment then humens might be able to breath in zero gravity enoviorment and perhaps for only few minutes. Space is a very vast area to contain oxygen in a cloud type area so i dont think oxygen would exist with out it being sucked away some where in space.

[Picturesque Orion]

I'm sorry but what do you mean by "sucked away"? Because it doesn't really sound logical to me. Care to explain?

[crystal sage]

....maybe....

The first atmospheric oxygen on Earth probably occurred as ultraviolet light broke apart H2O molecules. This would have resulted in a tiny bit of atmospheric oxygen, but it did result in some ozone. This helped form the beginning of the ozone layer.

http://www.environmentalgraffiti.com/ecolo...h-of-fresh-air/

Much more oxygen was produced through photosynthesis by cyanobacteria. However, millions and millions of years after the arrival of cyanobacteria there was still very little oxygen in the atmosphere. The bacteria were producing it, but it was getting sucked up by the earth. We mentioned yesterday how underwater volcanoes ate up some of the oxygen, but there was another culprit that was using up the rest.

The Earth has quite a bit of oxidizing minerals in its crust. Think of a rusting bike, then think of a gigantic rusting planet. The weathering process of Earth’s crust involved a massive amount of oxidation, which in turn required a massive amount of oxygen. But things couldn’t keep going at that rate forever.

Around 2.5 billion years ago most of the Earth’s surface rocks had oxidized enough to no longer require all that oxygen. They basically became oxygen saturated. This also corresponded with a shift in the locations of the majority of the world’s volcanoes from their underwater oxygen sucking environment to their above ground non-oxygen sucking environment. The cyanobacteria just kept doing their thing producing oxygen and in a mere billion plus years we end up with a nice fresh atmosphere.

The arrival of an atmosphere rich in oxygen was the first step in our long slow evolutionary march. As oxygen levels rose, we begin to see the beginnings of complex life on Earth.

Then add to this that most of the Comets... many Meteors are made of ice.....

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qi...30052320AAEL2oD

http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/space/07/08/r...date/index.html

Ice and mud make up Saturn's rings

(SPACE.com) -- Saturn's rings are a lot dirtier than originally believed, according to new observations by the Cassini spacecraft that show that the inner regions are packed with rock and mud.

"We've known for decades the rings are mostly made of water," said Larry Esposito of the University of Colorado at Boulder. "Now we know the amount of water varies, increasing toward the outer edge of the rings.

Cassini images made in ultraviolet light and released yesterday have been combined with infrared pictures -- all taken during the June 30 pass through the ring plane -- to give scientists a fresh but still puzzling picture of the majestic structures.

Gunk on ice

Water in Ice on the Moon

Water ice probably exists at both the Moon's north and south poles, according to data sent back to Earth by NASA's Lunar Prospector spacecraft.

The spacecraft is over the Moon in the NASA artist rendering above.

http://www.spacetoday.org/SolSys/Moons/TheMoon/WaterIce.html

Scientists assume most water ice on the Moon must be a result of meteors and comets striking the lunar surface. The amount of soil that could have been "gardened" by all meteor and comet impacts over the last 2 billion or so years extends down to a depth of about 6.5 feet. Researchers caution that their estimates of the amount of water could be off by a factor of ten in either direction.

. add a little UV from the sun... and any other stars.. suns in the universe... and then you would have lots of potential for oxygen.....

Mars has Ice... water... and so too .. it appears do other planets... all have the possibility of being able to capture some UV from one source or another.... then... just an idea... I didn't get A for science... but I did for biology...

Edited January 3, 2008 by crystal sage

[Invader Skoodge]

A gas would always be subject to its own gravitational potential. A gazeous cloud would be stable when its self-gravitation is in balance with the gas pressure.

Remember that the large planets in our solar system are basically comprised of gas.

When the objective is to have a cloud capable of supporting human life we need both enough pressure and temperature at the core of the cloud. This gives us a minimum mass required to keep the cloud together. Using the equations of hydrodynamic equilibrium we could derive a system of differential equations which can numerically be solved to calculate the density distribution of such a cloud. But let's not go that far.

To just get a rough estimate of the order of magnitude we're dealing with I used Jeans' criterion with the values of one standard atmosphere.

My result is that we would need about

1.6 * 10 ²² kg

of air for a self-sustained atmosphere.

This is about the mass of a dwarf planet. And it would stretch out to about more than earth's size.

So I'd say it's possible, but not doable. Would be cool, though.

When we accept the cloud to be instable, constantly expanding/thinning out/loosing pressure, so we need to constantly release more air at the core to keep the pressure up then we could theoretically get along with any amount of air. Just the questions are: For how long do we want to keep the pressure up? And how windy do we accept it to be there?

My guess would be that to have a relatively calm environment at some point in the cloud we would need to reach a mass not many powers of ten below the dwarf planet size.

It probably would be more reasonable to use some specifically developed liquid for creating a bubble in space...

[ravergirl]

i don't think that space starions have zero gravity. I think they have almost zero gravity. but not quite zero.

[Raptor]

well oxygen wouldn't exist in zero gravity becuase space is a vacume and if there would be oxygen it would be sucked away very quickly and disperse in space in a very quick manner, unless ofcourse you have an oxygen pumping machine that countinuesly pumps oxygen in an open space envoirnment then humens might be able to breath in zero gravity enoviorment and perhaps for only few minutes. Space is a very vast area to contain oxygen in a cloud type area so i dont think oxygen would exist with out it being sucked away some where in space.

It wouldn't be sucked away. What you're thinking about is a pressure gradient, when a fluid moves from a region of high pressure to low pressure. Here on Earth we have a pressure of 1 atm, so if you have a vacuum, gas is going to try and fill it up because it will be 'pushed' by the high pressure.

If you're in the emptiness of space there isn't a significant pressure gradient because there is a (partial) vacuum all around you, so there's no high pressure to violently push you away. But I think I'm right in saying that it's the pressure of the gas itself that will cause it to gradually spread out in the first place.

i don't think that space starions have zero gravity. I think they have almost zero gravity. but not quite zero.

If you're sitting inside the space station it's going to be 'falling' while in orbit at the same rate as you, so there won't be any relative movement. So it will appear to be zero gravity but really it isn't (the Earth is still pulling on you to keep you in orbit).

Hopefully Alex can point out any mistakes that I may have made.

Edited January 5, 2008 by Raptor

[+DieChecker]

I remember a book called "The Integral Trees" That was science fiction were a colony of humans lived in a low gravity toroid of air the went completely around a star. Basically a giant donut of air. Probably would take tens or hundreds of times the amount of matter that we have in our own solar system.

If you had enough air to make the shape of it stable, then wouldn't you get gravity too? And variable air pressure? Probably everything would fall toward the center of the air bubble.

[hatchbuilder]

dosn,t oxygen become a liqued in extreme cold