MadSci Network: Astronomy
Query:

Re: Is it possible to recreate a moon's atmosphere at home?

Date: Tue Jul 6 15:29:45 1999
Posted By: Dan Berger, Faculty Chemistry/Science, Bluffton College
Area of science: Astronomy
ID: 929382332.As
Message:

Europa Is it possible to recreate a moon's atmosphere at home?

I would like to duplicate Europa's atmosphere but I do not know how or what materials are needed.


It's possible to recreate any sort of atmosphere; you just need the right equipment. Whether you have that sort of equipment at home depends on what sort of home you have. To see what I mean, read some of the excellent "Amateur Scientist" columns in Scientific American.

Europa is especially simple (chemically) because its atmosphere is essentially pure oxygen. The pressure is a bit rough to emulate, though, because it's only 10-11 atmospheres! That needs equipment considerably better than conventional laboratory vacuum gear, which can only reach about 10-3 or 10-4 atmospheres. Unless you live in a high-powered physics research lab, you're unlikely to have access to that sort of vacuum at home.

So yes, it can be done in principle; but no, it's not likely that you'll be able to reproduce Europa's atmosphere at home. Try for something simple, like Mars or Titan.

  Dan Berger
  Bluffton College
  http://cs.bluffton.edu/~berger


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