what would happen if you could light a match on a gass planet?

Answer 1

good question.

Answer 2

It all depends on the availability of oxygen. When you strike a match what usually happens is that the flamable compounds on the match (usually containing phosphorus) heat up and mix with the oxygen in the air to produce light and heat as well as cause the wood or paper part of the match to mix with the oxygen in the air. So without oxygen surrounding the match, the material on the match would only get hot from the friction of rubbing it. So no boom, no flame, not even a spark, just a hot little match head and a bag of cold marshmellows.

Answer 3

Change the question to: What would happen if we could light a match in Jupiter's atmosphere?

Jupiter's atmosphere contains lots of gases which, on Earth, would be considered combustible (e.g., methane). However, there is almost no oxygen, nor any other free oxydizer (e.g., chlorine). Therefore, no fire nor explosion (except perhaps around the head of the match -- contains sulfur and phosphorus).

Also, there is powerful electrical lightning in Jupiter's atmosphere. If anything had to go boom, it would have done so from the lightning.

Answer 4

If you're referring to any gas planet in our solar system, such as Jupiter, Saturn, etc... then the answer is the match wouldn't light at all.
Fire requires three things - Heat, fuel, and oxygen. While the gas planets in our solar system have large amounts of flammable hydrogen based gases for fuel, none of them have any significant amounts of oxygen, so your match wouldn't burn. Now if you had a tank of oxygen on one of those planets, you could create a nice blowtorch by combining it with the gas in the atmosphere and lighting it, but once you ran out of oxygen, your flame would go out.

Answer 5

Only if there's oxygen. But lightning happens on Jupiter all the time, I bet such a planet would've burned off it's supply of combustables ages ago..

Answer 6

Nothing. There is no oxygen in a gas giant's atmosphere to support combustion. If there were, some natural process such as lightning would have ignited the atmosphere long ago.

Answer 7

Depends on the gas or gases that make up the atmosphere on the planet in question.

Answer 8

When Jupiter was bombarded by cometary fragments, the resultant explosions were the equivalent of huge nuclear explosions and they did not ignite the planet.

Answer 9

Space is a vacuum, so you'd only get a spark, not a flame. If the gas is combustible, and has a low flash point, the spark would ignite the gas and it's Bye-Bye Funny Man! You'd get an explosion for an instant, then it would be over ... no fire!

Answer 10

well i guess that once u light the match the whole thing would go up in flames or just nothing might happen.................................................. by the way to the guy above thers a difference in between agas planet and a planet containing gas

Answer 11

depends upon the mix of gases the right one could cause an explosion of huge proportions but in like an ammonia atmospere theres no oxygen so no reaction at all