Questions tagged [astrochemistry]
Chemistry occurring on asteroids, comets, in the interstellar medium or on other planets.
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How many carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, and phosphorus atoms are there in the observable universe?
If I could somehow reliably count all the carbon, nitrogen, hydrogen, oxygen, and phosphorus atoms in the observable universe, what number would I come up with?
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How is it possible for the moon to contain any helium-3?
According to the following article, scientists have known the lunar surface contains deposits of helium-3 since the Apollo program. The Chinese Chang'e 5 mission appears to confirm it after returning ...
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A theoretical chemistry question about elements and their presence over time [closed]
I'm not a chemist myself, but I can't think of a better place to get some insight about elements and chemistry than from people who live and breathe it here on stackexchange. This is not any kind of ...
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Is water the most common multielemental compound?
Water is a very common substance, not just on Earth, but also in space. Although water usually occurs in space as a solid and occasionally as a gas and relatively rarely as a liquid, the most common ...
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Calculating volume of gases in different conditions
Doctor Who has a secret laboratory on Venus where atmospheric pressure is $92$ times that of Earth and room temperature is $\pu{735 K}$. There, Doctor Who mixes $\pu{4.00 g}$ of $\ce{CaCO3}$ with $\pu{...
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How does protium fusion produce helium? [closed]
In stellar nucleosynthesis, how is helium produced from a protium atom that has no neutrons?
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Polymers that aren't brittle at the cryogenic temperatures found on Titan?
For entertainment purposes, I'm imagining a colony on a non-terraformed Titan, and wondering what is achievable. Hydrocarbons are incredibly plentiful there, while metals and even silicon would be ...
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How can compounds be called reduced if nothing is known about the reaction they formed in?
I'm reading a research article about a model trying to explain the elemental compositions of meteorites.[1]
What confuses me, are statements of the following type (here in chapter 2.1, second ...
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Is it theoretically possible that some STABLE isotopes from periods 8-10 exist on some distant planet somewhere in the universe?
By stable I mean a half-life of thousands of years at the very least.
We may never have enough resources to synthesize stable isotopes from those periods, but is it theoretically possible that ...
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Does gravity affect the rate of a chemical reaction?
For example, on planets with lower gravity, would the rate of reactions be lower because the reactants are slower to mix with one another?
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Is the surface of the planet Mercury made of copper minerals?
I have been looking at photographs of the planet Mercury, and I notices that in most of the pictures I have seen, the rocks on the surface seem to be covered in blue in green. From this, is it correct ...
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How uniform is the distribution of elements in the universe? [closed]
I was wondering about element distribution in the universe, specifically if any inconsistency in the relative distribution of elements would have any significant effects on the chemistry of a galaxy. ...
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Why is iodine the heaviest bonded element in circumstellar/interstellar space?
As I understand, the heaviest bonded element found in space to date is iodine, in the form of iodide in sodium iodide. This is the only element heavier than iron on this list, and that makes sense to ...
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Why is the discovery of chiral molecules in space a big accomplishment?
Today, I came across the discovery of a chiral pair of molecules in interstellar space. I know that a chiral molecule is a molecule that is not superimposable on its mirror image. But why is this ...
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Can we make glass by heating Martian Soil
I was puzzled by a very interesting question. Can we heat up Martian soil and produce glass just the way we do here on Earth? (the basic way)
For info, Martian sand consists of the following -
$\ce{...
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