# Oxygen comet hits Titan - What happens? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [May 2, 2017, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oxygen-comet-hits-titan-what-happens/785724 "2017-05-02T16:09:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Tranquilis](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tranquilis/32/3639_2.png) [@Tranquilis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tranquilis)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2017, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oxygen-comet-hits-titan-what-happens/785724/1 "2017-05-02T16:09:36Z")
I was watching [this video](https://youtu.be/TNjOaAIz_ZY) on the King of Random, and it occured to me that, well, Titan is mostly hydrocarbons on the surface… What would happen if it were hit with a really large and energetic blob of super-cryogenic oxygen - a mythical Oxygen Comet? I mean, yeah, large release of energy from the kinetic energy, but… What else? A moon-shattering KABOOM? A really big candle? Something else? ---
**Author:** ![Atamasama](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atamasama/32/12961_2.png) [@Atamasama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atamasama)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2017, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oxygen-comet-hits-titan-what-happens/785724/2 "2017-05-02T17:33:22Z")
Here’s an article on a comet that actually had oxygen in it (though it’s probably not exactly what you’re talking about in your hypothetical situation). > **[Modern Mystery: Ancient Comet Is Spewing Oxygen](https://www.space.com/30961-modern-mystery-ancient-comet-spewing-oxygen.html)** > > In a surprise finding for scientists, the Rosetta spacecraft detected molecular oxygen in the gas streaming off comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko And I call dibs on the Oxygen Comet band name. ---
**Author:** ![Tranquilis](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tranquilis/32/3639_2.png) [@Tranquilis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tranquilis)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2017, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oxygen-comet-hits-titan-what-happens/785724/3 "2017-05-02T17:41:29Z")
Well, THERE is a cool link - thank you! ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2017, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oxygen-comet-hits-titan-what-happens/785724/4 "2017-05-02T17:43:24Z")
You might as well posit a comet of pure napalm hitting the Earth, which is a considerably less ludicrous notion. In any event, the chemical energy of the comet would be dwarfed by its kinetic energy, and so it wouldn’t be much different from any other comet. ---
**Author:** ![Tranquilis](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tranquilis/32/3639_2.png) [@Tranquilis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tranquilis)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2017, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oxygen-comet-hits-titan-what-happens/785724/5 "2017-05-02T17:46:55Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > You might as well posit a comet of pure napalm hitting the Earth, which is a considerably less ludicrous notion. Grab a hunk of Titan, and send it on the correct trajectory, and you’ve got pretty much just that. > [@](#): > > In any event, the chemical energy of the comet would be dwarfed by its kinetic energy, and so it wouldn’t be much different from any other comet. OK, fair point. So then - If you soft-landed the oxygen? Slow chemical reaction? Spontaneous combustion? Space bunnies? ---
**Author:** ![Weisshund](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/ba8739/32.png) [@Weisshund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Weisshund)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2017, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oxygen-comet-hits-titan-what-happens/785724/6 "2017-05-02T17:47:26Z")
I am not a scientist but i was thinking a few things. assuming comet impacts and generates enough heat to gasify all the Oxygen in it. 1. does titan have enough gravity to hold on to the oxygen? Or does the impact etc just eject it all out into space. 2. does comet impact generate enough heat to ignite the hydro carbons? 3. if titan can trap the oxygen, and the impact can make enough heat to ignite the hydro carbons, wont it just quickly burn off the oxygen? POOF FLASH done? I mean the hydrocarbons wont continue burning once the oxygen is gone. 4. Is oxygen content of comet even enough to support combustion on a titan wide scale? there is a certain fuel to air ration needed for a given fuel to burn. Interested to hear what those who know think ---
**Author:** ![markn\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f9ae1b/32.png) [@markn\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/markn_1)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2017, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oxygen-comet-hits-titan-what-happens/785724/7 "2017-05-02T18:18:21Z")
In Larry Niven’s novel _World of Ptavvs_, he imagines that Pluto is covered with a mixture of frozen methane and frozen oxygen. The hot exhaust from a spaceship ignites the mixture and the whole planet burns. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2017, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oxygen-comet-hits-titan-what-happens/785724/8 "2017-05-02T18:39:40Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > You might as well posit a comet of pure napalm hitting the Earth, which is a considerably less ludicrous notion. > > In any event, the chemical energy of the comet would be dwarfed by its kinetic energy, and so it wouldn’t be much different from any other comet. What if it was an illudium Q-36 comet? ---
**Author:** ![Tranquilis](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tranquilis/32/3639_2.png) [@Tranquilis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tranquilis)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2017, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oxygen-comet-hits-titan-what-happens/785724/9 "2017-05-02T18:41:04Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > What if it was an illudium Q-36 comet? Then we’d damned well better _pray_ for space bunnies, or we’re screwed. ---
**Author:** ![Ethilrist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ethilrist/32/4604_2.png) [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2017, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oxygen-comet-hits-titan-what-happens/785724/10 "2017-05-02T20:02:36Z")
> [@markn\_1](#): > > In Larry Niven’s novel _World of Ptavvs_, he imagines that Pluto is covered with a mixture of frozen methane and frozen oxygen. The hot exhaust from a spaceship ignites the mixture and the whole planet burns. Bear also in mind that in Niven’s Known Space novels, “hot exhaust” is the flame from a fusion drive, which will make pretty much anything burn. ---
**Author:** ![watchwolf49](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e9c0ed/32.png) [@watchwolf49](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/watchwolf49)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2017, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oxygen-comet-hits-titan-what-happens/785724/11 "2017-05-02T20:15:54Z")
Why would the folks on Comet 67P drive into Titan? … especially after they went to all the trouble of hiding their lush tropical rainforests from that stoopid probe … c’mon Earthlings, mind your own business and don’t be such a Peeping-Tom with all your neighbors … ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2017, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oxygen-comet-hits-titan-what-happens/785724/12 "2017-05-02T20:21:32Z")
It might make anything start to burn, but you still need the appropriate chemistry for things to continue burning. In any event, large concentrations of elemental oxygen are implausible anywhere in the Universe, absent some sort of extreme conditions like life. ---
**Author:** ![si\_blakely](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d9b06d/32.png) [@si\_blakely](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/si_blakely)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2017, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oxygen-comet-hits-titan-what-happens/785724/13 "2017-05-02T20:22:35Z")
I rather suspect you would end up with something like this: > **[Methane clathrate](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methane_clathrate)** > > Methane clathrate (CH4·5.75H2O) or (8CH4·46H2O), also called methane hydrate, hydromethane, methane ice, fire ice, natural gas hydrate, or gas hydrate, is a solid clathrate compound (more specifically, a clathrate hydrate) in which a large amount of methane is trapped within a crystal structure of water, forming a solid similar to ice. Originally thought to occur only in the outer regions of the Solar System, where temperatures are low and water ice is common, significant deposits Methane clathr... After combustion has finished, you would end up with a big ball of ice and carbon dioxide - frozen soda water. ---
**Author:** ![Tranquilis](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tranquilis/32/3639_2.png) [@Tranquilis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tranquilis)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2017, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oxygen-comet-hits-titan-what-happens/785724/14 "2017-05-02T20:29:40Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > In any event, large concentrations of elemental oxygen are implausible anywhere in the Universe, absent some sort of extreme conditions like life. Which would be why I called it “mythical.” > [@si\_blakely](#): > > I rather suspect you would end up with something like this: > > [Methane clathrate - Wikipedia](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methane_clathrate) > > After combustion has finished, you would end up with a big ball of ice and carbon dioxide - frozen soda water. So, something like a large (!) candle - until the mixture no longer supports combustion? Insuficciently spectacular - Must find more compelling evil deed. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![swampspruce](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/swampspruce/32/261_2.png) [@swampspruce](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/swampspruce)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2017, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oxygen-comet-hits-titan-what-happens/785724/15 "2017-05-03T15:10:32Z")
Well, I happen to have a Ceres size chunk of cesium floating around near Jupiter. How about we drop that into Europa and see what happens… 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Machine\_Elf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/82dd89/32.png) [@Machine\_Elf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Machine_Elf)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2017, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oxygen-comet-hits-titan-what-happens/785724/16 "2017-05-03T15:25:29Z")
> [@Tranquilis](#): > > I mean, yeah, large release of energy from the kinetic energy, but… What else? A moon-shattering KABOOM? A really big candle? Something else? You wouldn’t get a KABOOM unless fuel and oxidizer were premixed. Years ago I read a Dave Barry article about [George Goble’s](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_H._Goble) party trick ([lighting a charcoal grill with LOX](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjPxDOEdsX8)). it mentioned the importance of placing a lit cigarette on top of the pile of charcoal _before_ pouring on the LOX; if the briquettes are soaked with LOX and _then_ ignited, they behave approximately like dynamite. So your O2 bolus wouldn’t generate a real chemical detonation, just vigorous deflagration in the mixing zone around the periphery of its debris cloud. A nice fireball, but no boom. You see this with tanker trucks that undergo BLEVE events, [like this one:](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_d9QPjYp3uw&t=0m45s) yes, there’s a bang as the overpressured tank ruptures and the fuel disperses (the white cloud) and vaporizes, but most of the fuel’s chemical energy isn’t released until it mixes with atmosphere and the flame front reaches it (the white cloud turns red and black). So it’s bang-WOOF, not KABOOM. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2017, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oxygen-comet-hits-titan-what-happens/785724/17 "2017-05-03T15:38:10Z")
> [@Tranquilis](#): > > … > Insuficciently spectacular - Must find more compelling evil deed. 😛 Teleport a small sample of Neutronium into the center of darn near any celestial body. Absent the rest of the gravity of its home neutron star to hold it together, degeneracy pressure will cause the small sample to expand. With lots of digits in the exponent. As space kablooey’s go, it’s pretty much a crowd-pleaser. The extreme conceptual simplicity adds style points. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2017, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oxygen-comet-hits-titan-what-happens/785724/18 "2017-05-03T16:01:19Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > Teleport a small sample of Neutronium into the center of darn near any celestial body. Absent the rest of the gravity of its home neutron star to hold it together, degeneracy pressure will cause the small sample to expand. With lots of digits in the exponent. Or take a couple of asteroid-sized chunks (one of neutronium, one of anti-neutronium) and sink them to the core of a planet. Meanwhile, have a flock of robots on the ocean bottom electrolysing water, keeping the hydrogen to make h-bombs and releasing the oxygen into the atmosphere (causing many problems with out of control wildfires.) When the two neutronium asteroids hit each other, set off all of those h-bombs along the seams of the world’s tectonic plates, unzipping them. Also, you need a full-scale replica of Ayers Rock, for some reason. ---
**Author:** ![Tranquilis](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tranquilis/32/3639_2.png) [@Tranquilis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tranquilis)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2017, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oxygen-comet-hits-titan-what-happens/785724/19 "2017-05-03T19:07:13Z")
> [@Machine\_Elf](#): > > You wouldn’t get a KABOOM unless fuel and oxidizer were premixed. Years ago I read a Dave Barry article about [George Goble’s](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_H._Goble) party trick ([lighting a charcoal grill with LOX](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjPxDOEdsX8)). it mentioned the importance of placing a lit cigarette on top of the pile of charcoal _before_ pouring on the LOX; if the briquettes are soaked with LOX and _then_ ignited, they behave approximately like dynamite. > > So your O2 bolus wouldn’t generate a real chemical detonation, just vigorous deflagration in the mixing zone around the periphery of its debris cloud. A nice fireball, but no boom. You see this with tanker trucks that undergo BLEVE events, [like this one:](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_d9QPjYp3uw&t=0m45s) yes, there’s a bang as the overpressured tank ruptures and the fuel disperses (the white cloud) and vaporizes, but most of the fuel’s chemical energy isn’t released until it mixes with atmosphere and the flame front reaches it (the white cloud turns red and black). So it’s bang-WOOF, not KABOOM. So, a really SPECTACULAR deflagration, followed by a bunch of astro-types scratching their heads and wondering where all the oxidizer came form, then. 😃 > [@LSLGuy](#): > > Teleport a small sample of Neutronium into the center of darn near any celestial body… > > As space kablooey’s go, it’s pretty much a crowd-pleaser. The extreme conceptual simplicity adds style points. Like putting dry ice in a party balloon… On a cosmic scale. Yeah, that’d do for an Evil PLan. 🆒 > [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > Also, you need a full-scale replica of Ayers Rock, for some reason. But who makes biological constructs that can’t eat or poop…? ---
**Author:** ![eburacum45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eburacum45/32/8690_2.png) [@eburacum45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eburacum45)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2017, 8:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oxygen-comet-hits-titan-what-happens/785724/20 "2017-05-05T08:35:08Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > In any event, large concentrations of elemental oxygen are implausible anywhere in the Universe, absent some sort of extreme conditions like life. I don’t know if a waterworld counts as extreme conditions, but according to some models a planet with a deep ocean and ice mantle could have an abiogenic oxygen/nitrogen atmosphere due to photodissociation. If that is the case then free oxygen atmospheres may be relatively common. Having said that I can’t imagine any way that the oxygen on a waterworld and the methane on a Titan world could encounter each other. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oxygen-comet-hits-titan-what-happens/785724.md?page=2)