this post was submitted on 13 Nov 2023
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ELI5

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Explain it to me like I am 5. Everybody should know what this is about.

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Would the atmosphere cease to exist?

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[–] [email protected] 0 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Why are you assuming it would have to freeze to fall as precipitation? You ever hear of rain?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago (1 children)

True, though you could have been less rude about it. I had forgotten about the condensation point. It's pretty similar though and doesn't change anything about my answer. Condensation of Oxygen is -183°C, Nitrogen -196°C. It's hard to find condensation data on "air" because there's a similar term called the "dew point" at which humidity starts condensating out of the air, but it's probably around -190°C.

Again, there's basically nowhere in the known universe that's that cold, especially on a planetary body with an atmosphere, except for here on Earth in a lab.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Recorded temperatures at the poles of Titan indicate it's just cold enough for oxygen to condense (-183.1 Deg. C). Unfortunately, even though cold enough, there isn't any free oxygen detected in the atmosphere of the moon. Although it does rain methane, it's predicted there are cryo-volcanoes, and water is as hard as stone. There are really interesting atmospheric phenomena occurring on the moon.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Cool! The situations on some planets is absolutely insane

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

And Titan is a balmy vacation spot compared to Triton's temperature of about -235 C and Pluto's -229 C.