what would happen if you lit a match on titan?

[SelectHalfling0]

Not concerning all of the complex chemical rxns that go into lighting a match on earth, if you lit a match on titan, would it burst in flames? Would it's methane oceans burn?

[ZetaX]

Methane does not burn. Methane+oxygen burns. The latter is missing.

[linkxsc]

It would strike several times, probably with no spark, as your hands quickly start to chill. Then you freeze to death.

[moogoob]

The chemistry of a match is meant for an oxygen-rich atmosphere. If the match head and striker strip were some kind of oxidizer material - reacted to give off hydrogen peroxide and heat or something, THEN it would burn. It wouldn't stay lit, however, unless the match itself was... soaked in liquid oxygen?

Yeah, it would all be backwards in an atmosphere like that.

EDIT:

http://chemistry.about.com/od/howthingsworkfaqs/f/howmatcheswork.htm

Ahh, so the heads of safety matches contain oxidizer. Good to know. The match would definitely go out once the head burned, however.

Edited August 10, 2014 by moogoob
adding details

[WestAir]

What about an atom bomb?

[Bacterius]

What about an atom bomb?

You would be vaporized by the blast.

[linkxsc]

You would be vaporized by the blast.

It's detonator might not fire due to the cold, but it'd probably still fire just fine

[Scotius]

But atmosphere still would not conflagrate No oxygen, no fire.

[SpaceXray]

What about an atom bomb?

You mean a NUCLEAR bomb. A ball with C4 is an atom bomb since you have a bomb and a ball from molecules which are from atoms.

[Seret]

You mean a NUCLEAR bomb. A ball with C4 is an atom bomb since you have a bomb and a ball from molecules which are from atoms.

That's not the definition of an atom bomb. Atom bombs were the early fission weapons such those used in WWII. A nuclear weapon is a fusion device.

- - - Updated - - -

What about an atom bomb?

The issue is the lack of oxygen, not heat.

[qazsedcft]

But note that you could run a kind of "reverse air-breathing engine" on Titan. It would work just like jet engines on Earth but instead of carrying fuel and mixing it with oxidyzer from the atmosphere you carry the oxidizer and burn it with fuel from the atmosphere.

[ZetaX]

That's not the definition of an atom bomb. Atom bombs were the early fission weapons such those used in WWII. A nuclear weapon is a fusion device.

No. Nuclear bombs are any weapons based on nuclear energy, be it fission or fusion. An atomic bomb often denotes a fission weapon, and a thermonuclear one is fusion. "Atom bomb" sounds like a misspelling of atomic bomb, but you could also give it the quite literal meaning jokingly used by SpaceXray.

[Seret]

"Atom bomb" was the colloquial term at the time. My dad said he remembered seeing newspaper headlines saying "atom bomb dropped on Japan" and thinking "what the heck is an atom bomb?". Nobody uses the term atom bomb to refer to a chemical explosive.

Technically atom bombs are nuclear bombs, but you will find that when people use the word a-bomb they mean a fission device, and when they talk about nukes or h-bombs they do mean a thermonuclear device.

I've always liked the cheerful term sunbomb, myself.

[Awaras]

I thought the correct term was 'Nucular'. Even US presidents use it. :P

[Seret]

That's sort of the litmus test for an idiot, isn't it?

[ZetaX]

Technically atom bombs are nuclear bombs, but you will find that when people use the word a-bomb they mean a fission device, and when they talk about nukes or h-bombs they do mean a thermonuclear device.

No problem with the first half, but the latter is not what seems to be used. I just took a short search for "nuclear bomb", the first page on google is filled with articles about Hiroshima. Generally, there seems to be no distinction between fission or fusion in that word. Searching for "nuke" turned out to be less than useful as nowadays everything seems to be named a nuke...

[Seret]

I don't think Google search is a good indicator of usage. People who don't understand that there's any difference between fission and fusion weapons will tend to call them both nuclear though, so I agree common usage is a bit ambiguous.

One thing I think we can agree on that "atom bomb" isn't used to mean chemical explosives, which was my whole point.

Back to the topic maybe?

[ZetaX]

The topic is a bit... boring¿ I think everything on it has been said (stuff does not burn by itself, but by reacting with something).

It also reminds me on that question if you can turn Jupiter into a sun by detonating a nuke (stupid pun intended :-p) on it.

[lajoswinkler]

If you kept the match in your warm pocket, it would have sufficient energy to burst into flames. It contains potassium chlorate as oxidizer and sulfur or some other stuff as a reducer.

If you kept them outside in the cryogenic atmosphere, it would probably not be able to burn because it's too cold. I'm not sure, though.

After the match coating burns away, the fire would simply stop. There's nothing to react with anymore.

Also, Titan's atmosphere is basically nitrogen. It's not methane. It has 4.9% methane near the ground.

[cantab]

I hadn't thought of temperature. Just considering chemistry lajos is right, there'd be a brief flash of flame because matches use fuel and oxidizer to ignite. I believe on a "safety" match one is on the head and the other on the striker. Then it would go out because there's no oxygen to burn the wood.

I wonder if there's a solid slow-burning oxidizer that you could make a Titan match out of?

Regarding fuel-breathing engines, IIRC there's the interesting point that they're not as efficient as air-breathing ones, because by mass you need more oxidizer than fuel.

[Kryten]

I wonder if there's a solid slow-burning oxidizer that you could make a Titan match out of?

If you try working the way around, lithium and magnesium can act as fuels with nitrogen as the oxidiser; I can't find anything showing the actual speed of the reaction (other than it being referred to as 'burning' rather than just 'oxidising'), but I doubt it's all that slow. Perhaps metallic Li/Mg particles in an inert binder?

[lajoswinkler]

I hadn't thought of temperature. Just considering chemistry lajos is right, there'd be a brief flash of flame because matches use fuel and oxidizer to ignite. I believe on a "safety" match one is on the head and the other on the striker. Then it would go out because there's no oxygen to burn the wood.

I wonder if there's a solid slow-burning oxidizer that you could make a Titan match out of?

Regarding fuel-breathing engines, IIRC there's the interesting point that they're not as efficient as air-breathing ones, because by mass you need more oxidizer than fuel.

Safety matches have everything they need on the match head, binded with some kind of glue. The striker is basically to ignite the stuff by friction.

If warm enough, flares could work on Titan because all they need is inside them.

They would work just fine.

[Dispatcher]

Not concerning all of the complex chemical rxns that go into lighting a match on earth, if you lit a match on titan, would it burst in flames? Would it's methane oceans burn?

Nothing would happen.

[WestAir]

You mean a NUCLEAR bomb. A ball with C4 is an atom bomb since you have a bomb and a ball from molecules which are from atoms.

Wow. You people are just beacons of semantics, aren't you? Atom bomb is a term widely used in the mid 20th Century before the invention of thermonuclear weapons. I live in Las Vegas, NV, where a lot of "atom bombs" were tested nearby. It's a term that survived, and its usage is completely unrelated to my point at all. Not only did you ignore my tongue-in-cheek question, you insulted my intelligence to parade your own by suggesting a term that does exist doesn't. I found that to be unnecessarily disrespectful.

[ZetaX]

I would also find it unnecessarily disrespectful that you ignored the discussion on this naming.

Apart from that, calling some (admitedly bad) joke an insult is a bit over the top.