Re: Multiple thalassogens

<chornedsnorkack@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1132851832.446546.240030@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
<snip>
> > > > > > > > But what about an ocean of SO2 floating on an ocean of CO2,
> > > > > > >
> > > > > > > Dubious. Liquid SO2 is miscible with a plenty of organic
solvents, I
> > > > > > > suspect with CO2 as well.
> > > > > >
> > > > > > Hm. I find that odd, as SO2 is polar and CO2 is not.
> > > > >
> > > > > The difference is there, but not that huge.
> > > >
> > > > Almost as big as it is with water. CO2 is completely non-polar,
while SO2
> > > > has a dipole moment of 1.63 D- less than water at 1.85 D, but still
higher
> > > > than ammonia at 1.47 D.
> > > >
> > > Comparing water and SO2, wou will notice that SO2 has a molecular mass
> > > of 64 and water has 18, yet SO2 boils at -10 Celsius and water at
+100.
> > > The difference is that water can form hydrogen bonds and SO2 cannot,
> > > lacking available H.
> >
> > True. That brings up the possibility of another thallasogen: H2SO4,
which
> > has a much wider liquid range than water.
> > I assume H2SO4 would remain highly corrosive even when not in solution
with
> > water,
>
> I assume that especially when not in solution...
>
> > but would it be possible for it to coexist with a CO2 ocean?
>
> I suppose so. Depending on what the bottom is, though.

Seems to me that that's not so much an issue of coesxisting with CO2 as it
is an issue of existing at all.

> Venus now has clouds of around 75% H2SO4 - the concentration ought to
> vary, perhaps someone can comment. The acid rains constantly down, but
> evaporates in hot lower atmosphere without reaching the surface. The
> vapour somehow returns back up and condenses.
>
> Venus also has 90 atm CO2. But the lower levels are hot.
>
> If Venus were cooled appreciably then one would expect the sulphuric
> acid rain to get further down. If the temperature were low enough, or
> if the total quantity of available sulphuric acid were increased, the
> acid might reach the surface. Then it depends on whether there are
> available bases or if those are exhausted. In the latter case, Venus
> might end up with lakes and oceans, and rivers and springs, of strong
> sulphuric acid.

I'm sceptical of sulphuric acid oceans on Venus. I don't think there's
enough in the clouds to make a whole ocean out of. But lakes and rivers,
yes, and on a planet with much more surface sulphur, then oceans.

> Also when the temperature of Venus' atmosphere at the 73 atmosphere
> level reached 31 Celsius, the carbon dioxide would form a surface of an
> ocean. I expect that while small amounts of sulphuric acid can dissolve
> in carbon dioxide, and small amounts would evaporate into the overlying
> gas phase, sulphuric acid would not be freely miscible and would sink
> to the bottom of carbon dioxide.
>
> You can have clouds on both sides of the ocean surface, as
> precipitation of liquid sulphuric acid can happen both in gaseous and
> liquid carbon dioxide, but the density and viscosity of the surrounding
> carbon dioxide, as well as surface tension of sulphuric acid, changes
> discontinuously on the surface of carbon dioxide... And of course, you
> can have critical opalescence. I wonder what precisely happens to swell
> that reaches critical point...

Oo! Clouds of one thallasogen inside the liquid layer of another is a cool
thought. I assume the same thing could happen with water?
Swell that reaches the critical point would probably just vaporize
(supercritical fluidize?) I'm not quite sure how to visualize that, though.
Maybe waves just never get above a certain height because the tops evaporate
off. That would be a very finely-tuned situation, though, and further
cooling would leave us with a regular liquid/gas interface, whose appearance
we know well.

> > It ought
> > to be able to cooexist with a hydrocarbon ocean, or at least certain
types
> > of hydrocarbon oceans, but then one has to wonder how you ended up with
a
> > large amount of liquid hydrocarbons in the oxidizing environment
necessary
> > to form oceans of H2SO4.
> >
> > > > Which brings up another possibility- Ammonia+CO2 /
Ammonia+Hydrocarbons?
<snip>
> > > I do not think ammonia dissolves well in hydrocarbons.
> >
> > So assuming ocean-forming quantities of both, then, we end up with two
> > separate layers, one of ammonia and one of hydrocarbons.
> >
> > I wonder about the possibility of ammonia and hydrocabons reacting to
form
> > HCN, cyanogen, and other such things.
> > Speaking of which, HCN and (CN)2 might make good thallasogens as well,
> > modulo a small liquid range for (CN)2 at Earth pressures.
> >
> The problem is that, unlike water, ammonia enjoys much worse intrinsic
> stability. And so do hydrogen cyanide and cyanogen - they are even
> worse.

Ammonia just needs some special conditions to keep it from getting
dissociated.
HCN and (CN)2, on the other hand, are higher energy than their components,
so there might be some problem with them decaying into nitrogen and
hydrocarbons over really long periods (are they more easily
photodissociated?). But if iron and nickel carbonyls can be thallasogens,
there's probably a way to devise an environment that will support HCN and
(CN)2.

> Incidentally, a fluid with excellent intrinsic stability is HF...

Which also happens to have an inconveniently low cosmic abundance.
Otherwise, I'd be designing creatures living in HF solvent using NH3 as an
oxidizer and CF4 as a carbon source.

<snip>
> > > > Stephen Gillett's suggestion for how to get a world with
> > > > SO2 oceans starts out similar to that, and has most of the water get
> > > > dissociated, with the hydrogen lost to space, leaving behind loads
of free
> > > > oxygen to react with the sulphur.
> > > > The hydrogen originates, I presume, from hot sulphur reacting with
water
> > > > vapor to form sulphur oxides?
> > > Yep. Perhaps over the intermediate H2S. And as above, double-checking
> > > there would probably be not much hydrogen.
> > >
> > > Naturally, lakes of brimstone would have to be hotter than on Earth -
> > > +119 Celsius minimum. They can coexist with water if there is an
> > > elevated pressure. The heat may come from the sunlight or else from
> > > internal heat.
> >
> > Something Venus-ish, perhaps, with a thick (compared to ours, anyway)
> > atmosphere of carbon dioxide causing an enormous greenhouse effect (but
not
> > nearly so enormous as Venus's- just enough to keep the average
temperature
> > above 100C). A thicker atmosphere means more even heat-distribution,
though,
> > which could make the idea of frozen sulphur at the poles a problem.
Might
> > just have to put it closer to its sun.
> >
> Well, Venus additionally has slow rotation - and therefore limited
> Coriolis forces.

This is true, but a thicker atmosphere means more even heat distribution
regardless.
Maybe we could actually do without lots of CO2 in this case, as water vapor
is already a more effective greenhouse gas, and if the water is boiling off
at the equator, there's going to be lots of it in the atmosphere.
Actually, that might be a problem with the water boiling off at the equator-
the extra vapor in the atmosphere will increase the pressure until no more
evaporates, and since the pressure will be fairly evenly distributed over
the whole globe, that means either no liquid water or liquid water
everywhere.

-l.
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