if you dropped liquid nitrogen from a plane onto a cloud, would it fall to earth or would the cloud freeze?

Question

and if the cloud froze, would it fall to earth? and what as? a solid mass or as hail?

Answer 1

Assumming you dropped enough liquid nitrogen onto a cloud to freeze it (because if it doesn't freeze instantly then the liquid nitrogen is going to evalopate and simply chill the cloud), I would expect to see a huge mass of hail dropping from the sky.

Unfortunately, clouds are not solid blocks of water so it will not fall as one massive block of ice. They are areas of dense water vapor. Droplets of water vapor will start forming into ice crystals. They will grow in size as they stick together while falling to earth.

It would be a lovley sight. You should try it sometime.

Answer 2

Yikes, ask a Chemist!

First, nitrogen is not the lightest of the air gases.

Now, liquid nitrogen is only a liquid for an extremely short amount of time. The warmth of the atmosphere would QUICKLY convert the liquid nitrogen into a gas. The liquid would never reach the earth... let alone the cloud. The only way you would get the liquid nitrogen to form a cloud is if you flew into the cloud and dropped it. In which case, a mild sprinkle would result. Now, what about the nitrogen once it has evaporated? Since the nitrogen composes over 70% of our atmosphere, it would harmlessly join our atmosphere.

Wow, some of those answers before... wow.

Answer 3

If you were to pour enough liquid nitrogen onto a cloud, I suppose the cloud would condense and either rain or hail would fall. It depends on whether enough liquid nitrogen is used so that enough of it actually condenses the part of the cloud it's poured onto before the nitrogen evaporates.

Answer 4

Good question
We all have known from the science that The Nitrogen is the lighter gas of all the gaes in the air
So, when it is dropped from the aeroplane first if u do it from plane by the window the plane will crash due to imbalance and if there is some mechanical process then it simply mixes with the cloud

Answer 5

I use a big thermos flask of liquid nitrogen to cool a little chamber to cryogenic temperature. An even bigger proportion of the stuff would be needed to freeze a gas which has no adiabatic boundaries (walls - insulation). So you would need a tanker plane many times bigger than a cloud to even attempt it. There is no current plane which would carry such a large mass.

Answer 6

Maybe you should think first about how you would could manage to drop the liquid nitrogen onto the cloud, without getting any splashed on yourself lol.

Answer 7

Its an straightforward reality. In our aspect of the ambience, the temperature is mostly more desirable on the cloud tiers compared to floor aspect. it fairly is why cloulds won't be able to freeze over and the actual undeniable reality that they are made up of water vapor ward off this from occurring. besides the undeniable fact that, this does no longer prepare to the moisture interior clouds, and considering the fact that of this places get freezing rain, snow, hail and sleet.

Answer 8

My guess would be that the liquid nitrogen would vaporize after a few seconds of freefall. I really doubt you'd be able to freeze a cloud.

Answer 9

it would absolutly depend on how much you dropped and also the percent humidity in the cloud (is the cloud just a degree from dewpoint saturation?), I put a chunk of dry ice in a bowl of water to see if it would freeze. it was a big chunk copmpared to the volume of water. first it sunk and bubbled gray/white smoke like at a pink floyd concert, then it floated and just started slowly shrinking with no smoke. Never did freeze the water, i dunno, maybe cuz it was Arizona there was enuf heat in the air to offset the cooling power of -150 degree dry ice, but that's another ?

Answer 10

It would fall as rain. I think that would be the effect because all rain starts of as ice crystals ( yes, ice) which have stick to particles in the air ( like ozone) to grow. Than when it falls, it melts and the ozone falls to the ground ( which is why people with allergies hate rain). People nowadays use that strategy for farmers. They spend a lot of money to do it. But there's always the question " what if it would have rained anyway?" Farmers still pay them to use the strategy.