Today's Q

[ceagle]

Alrighty, cats n kittens! Here's a ponderance ya might find fun to deduce... :>

We know that there's the periodic table of elements, and on that table the first two lightest ones Hydrogen and Helium are too light to stay upon the earth if released from a container or compound. On a recent science show, they stated that we would lose virtually all of the Earth's hydrogen at this rate in about 1.2 billion years.

On Mars, the gravity is only 38% of Earth's, so... which elements would fall into the category of being too light to remain on Mars? :D

Comments

[lobowolf.livejournal.com]

Hmmm, this sounds like a trick question. The only reason why Hydrogen and Helium are "light" is because in comparison, the air and water vapor in the atmosphere are much more dense. If there were no atmosphere (as on mars), even at .38G, even Hydrogen and Helium would hang around. They'd only "float away" if the Martian atmosphere contained denser gases. Granted, any gas will eventually disperse if given long enough.

[eagle-bird.livejournal.com]

THe reason we have an atmosphere is because oxygen and nitrogen, etc, do not have the escape velocity necessary to escape earth's gravity.