How much O2 would it take to blow up Titan?

[Euracil]

Totally spontaneous question. If we had magical O2 pumps or something, flooded titan with oxygen, which has lakes of liquid methane (yes it's that cold), and then lit a match, how much O2 would it take to create the biggest explosion possible and how big would it be?

[philly_idle]

Interesting question Lets see:

If my chemistry-memory still serves it should be calculatable by this:

Turns out it didn't, so here's the correct version:

1 CH[SUB]4[/SUB] + 2 O[SUB]2[/SUB] -> 1 CO[SUB]2[/SUB] + 2 H[SUB]2[/SUB]O

According to this website, the molecular weight of methane is 16.04 and that of oxygen (o2) is 32.

Therefore, to burn 16.04 mass-units of methane you need 2*32 = 64 mass-units of oxygen.

Or, for every kg of methane you want to burn, you need 4kg of oxygen.

Unfortunatly, I don't know how much methane there is on titan and I didn't find a solid number....anyone?

Edited June 20, 2013 by philly_idle

[Kryten]

It's basically impossible to say, unfortunately. We can measure the area of the lakes, but we've no way of telling how deep they are.

[Jones-250]

To be on the safe side, we could just do the naíve thing and belive that the entire body is completely made out of methane. This would cut off most of the useless math, and get us to the blow-things-up-part of business more quickly.

[Brotoro]

Even if you blew up its whole atmosphere, you won't blow up Titan because it's mostly ice and rock.

[tomf]

The formula is 1 CH₄ + 2O₂ -> CO₂ + 2 H₂O so you need only 4 kg of O₂ for each of methane. Now you just need to weigh the methane.

[MBobrik]

To destroy Titan, not just scorch it, blow up the atmosphere, or melt the surface, you would have to supply more than its gravitational binding energy. Which is 2.8e29 J. Which would need approximately 5e21 Kg of methane, or, given its liquid density, a global ocean of methane 125 km deep on the surface. And then we would have to add 2e22 Kg of oxygen on top of that. But the Titan has not even a fraction of the required methane so the point is moot.

.

But if you are just out to blow up Titan using oxygen, and it doesn't have to be through methane-oxygen combustion, you can do it with far less. Just accelerate a 150 million ton heavy block of frozen oxygen to 99.9 % c and smash it into Titan. Kablam, Titan gone !

Edited June 20, 2013 by MBobrik

[philly_idle]

The formula is 1 CH₄ + 2O₂ -> CO₂ + 2 H₂O so you need only 4 kg of O₂ for each of methane. Now you just need to weigh the methane.

Thanks for pointing it out, you're right of course. I corrected it in the above post.

[ZingidyZongxxx]

Just accelerate a 150 million ton heavy block of frozen oxygen to 99.9 % c and smash it into Titan. Kablam, Titan gone !

Oh yeah, no problems there. Let me just go grab my warp drive and 150 million ton block of oxygen and I'll get right on this.

[tomf]

This reminds me of the excellent website on how to destroy the Earth. http://qntm.org/destroy

[philly_idle]

Oh yeah, no problems there. Let me just go grab my warp drive and 150 million ton block of oxygen and I'll get right on this.

Don't forget your refrigerator ;-)

[J. Paige Dunn]

Hi, I've enjoyed reading this thread so far. I'm currently writing a novel about a settlement on Titan, and this thread was the first thing I found in my search. I don't want to destroy Titan itself; there are several domed cities filled with what is basically Earth atmosphere. The scenario is that Titan has been attacked from outside, and each city's dome has big holes punched in it, but it's basically still intact. Each dome houses 50,000 people, is about 15 stories high, and covers approximately 10 - 15 square kilometers. Anyone care to guess or approximations of whether there would be adequate oxygen to start a firestorm in each domed city?

[sjwt]

Anyone care to guess or approximations of whether there would be adequate oxygen to start a firestorm in each domed city?

You would not put that much O2 into the air to start with, so its not going to allow fires to grow massively out of control, you would need to do just as you would on earth, add enough spaced out fuel in a fuel bomb to mix with the normal O2 and make an explosive mix.

[jwenting]

One other minor glitch to consider is that the force of the fires you'd start near the surface would quickly drive the oxygen away from the methane, snuffing out the reaction and leaving Titan with maybe for a while a somewhat changed atmosphere with higher water and CO2 content which would eventually diffuse out into space and/or fall on the surface of the moon as snow.

To get a better effect, you'd inject the oxygen into a cavity you drill into the center of the moon.

[J. Paige Dunn]

You would not put that much O2 into the air to start with, so its not going to allow fires to grow massively out of control

That's what I was afraid of, since O2 is only 20% of Earth atmo. I suppose it wouldn't be unreasonable to have oxygen storage tanks in each city. I just don't want go go down to that level of explanatory detail. However, I also don't want someone to read it and say "That can't happen! This writer is an idiot."

Thanks

Jen

[PakledHostage]

I suppose it wouldn't be unreasonable to have oxygen storage tanks in each city.

You could explain it away by saying that they obtain oxygen by melting/electrolyzing water ice to create hydrogen and oxygen. I read in the book "Titan Unveiled: Saturn's Mysterious Moon Explored", by Ralph Lorenz and Jacqueline Mitton that Titan's density is consistent with it being composed of about 50% water ice. It isn't massive enough for it to be composed entirely of rock. There may even be liquid water deep within its core.

Edited August 7, 2013 by PakledHostage

[Pingonaut]

Are you planning for a special occasion?

[Motokid600]

The sight of an atmosphere igniting. Not even sure if I can imagine that properly. Makes me think of the Manhattan project. A lot of people thought the first nuke would set the Earths atmosphere ablaze....its a good thing that didn't happen. Also they did this on an episode of Futurama. Pine trees took over the world. Flooded it with o2. And Bender sparked up a cigar. Everyone died. Great episode.

[Moon Goddess]

To destroy Titan, not just scorch it, blow up the atmosphere, or melt the surface, you would have to supply more than its gravitational binding energy. Which is 2.8e29 J. Which would need approximately 5e21 Kg of methane, or, given its liquid density, a global ocean of methane 125 km deep on the surface. And then we would have to add 2e22 Kg of oxygen on top of that. But the Titan has not even a fraction of the required methane so the point is moot.

.

But if you are just out to blow up Titan using oxygen, and it doesn't have to be through methane-oxygen combustion, you can do it with far less. Just accelerate a 150 million ton heavy block of frozen oxygen to 99.9 % c and smash it into Titan. Kablam, Titan gone !

200 zettagrams is a lot of oxygen, from what I can tell it's almost 15% the total mass of Titan. You've just changed the gravitational binding energy of Titan, you're going to need more. But as you said, Titan isn't 3.8 % pure methane so the conversation is silly.