It released almost a ton of CO2.

  • yemmly@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    I’m not a rocket surgeon, but can the emissions really weigh more than the fuel?

    • Everythingispenguins@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Absolutely and that’s how chemistry works, basically you take some hydrocarbons(a bunch of H and C) and you add oxygens to them. I know it is weird to think of burning this way because you see the thing burnt disappear but remember that mass cannot be created or destroyed. Burning is really just adding two masses together and getting some waste heat in the process. What is left over from the process is going to be the weight of both the mass and it takes a lot of oxygen to burn jet fuel. Hence why the missions weigh so much more than the jet fuel.

    • towerful@programming.dev
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      1 year ago

      I imagine it includes the extraction, processing and delivery of the fuel?

      From a rudimentary chemistry understanding, changing a lighter hydrogen atom for a heavier oxygen atom (burning hydrocarbon -> H2O + CO2) will increase the mass. I dunno how applicable that is in the real world tho

      • FooBarrington@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        The atoms themselves aren’t changing, you’d have to do fusion or fission for that. It’s the molecules that are changing.

        • towerful@programming.dev
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          1 year ago

          I meant “swapping” a hydrogen atom for an oxygen atom within a molecule as part of the chemical reaction of combustion.
          I didn’t explain it well, tho