• Question: can you get chemical reactions in space?

    Asked by cerys to Adam, Catherine, Karen, Leila, Nazim on 15 Mar 2012.
    • Photo: Adam Stevens

      Adam Stevens answered on 14 Mar 2012:

      Yep, they do happen. Generally it’s very slowly though, as reaction rates are dependent on temperature.

    • Photo: Leila Battison

      Leila Battison answered on 15 Mar 2012:

      Sure you can, as long as you have the chemicals that you want to react, which can be quite tricky because space is pretty much empty!

      So you need to get two chemicals together to hit eachother. This is even less likely because space is so cold that they don’t have the energy to move around very fast. BUT, if it did happen, then the chemical reaction would happen, just like it does on Earth!

    • Photo: Karen Masters

      Karen Masters answered on 18 Mar 2012:

      Yes they do happen – for example before stars can form from hydrogen, the hydrogen has to turn into molecules of hydrogen (or it can’t cool down enough to collapse and form a proto-star).

      We have detected quite complex molecules (like alcohol for example) in space. It’s just very cold out there, and the density of atoms is quite low, so everything takes a really long time.

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