Can things burn on the moon?

Question

Is there enough oxygen up there to allow for fire or is oxygen even needed for fire to be possible? If a bomb or missile hit the moon, what would happen?

Answer 1

No because there is no oxygen.

Answer 2

Kirt A has it right.

Bring your own oxygen.

If you supply oxygen and heat to a combustible object, it will burn.

Of course, how you do that could be tricky.

I would opt for a transparent sphere with two valves.  Oxygen bottle on the intake valve.  Maybe a toggle, a lever or simply an automatic valve (spring is OK) on the outlet, near the top.

Place a piece of paper in the sphere, turn on the oxygen.  Use a magnifying lens to set the paper on fire.  Let out some CO2 through the outlet, at the same rate as new oxygen comes in (otherwise the CO2 will smother the fire)

To stop the fire, stop feeding oxygen and let out any remaining gas, from the sphere.

If you do this on the Moon, then you can burn things on the Moon.  If you do this on an asteroid, then you can burn things on an asteroid.

On a comet? why not.

Answer 3

gunpowder would becuase it contains its own oxidizer but there is no way of igniting it other than firing a gun so i thinks tht the olny thing unless u use a magnifing glass ;)

Answer 4

I suppose a person might burn if they stayed at the side facing the sun with no clothes of for a few hours, but I think you'd be dead before than

Answer 5

um well the sun is up in space isn't it? and its a huge ball of fire right? well if they can get a missile to a satellite i guess the can get it to the moon and trust me no body is blowing up the moon ever

Answer 6

nothing would happen. theres no oxygen.

Answer 7

theres is no oxygen

Answer 8

No the moon has a cold atmoshpere because it is very distant from the sun and if it were to be hot we would have heat 24/7.

Answer 9

no you need 3 things to get a fire going fuel, heat and oxygen and thats fact.

the moon has no atmosphere so therefor no oxygen for the fire to burn. however some things are what you call oxidizing which means they give off oxygen whilst being burned and can even burn underwater a good example of this is modern diynomite fuse wire.

but then again you have to supply a flame to begin the fire of an oxidizer so basic matches wont work but mixing certain chemicals would probs do the trick......so technically yes certain materials that give of oxygen will combust on the moon if you can manage to set them on fire their in the first place....

ps the sun burns becos of nuclear fusion......totally different story.  same story as an atom bomb they don't burn like fire its totally different its atoms splitting giving of HUGE energy in form of vaporising heat that is just as hot as the sun......give take few 10000 degres c

Answer 10

nope, no oxygen, no fire

Answer 11

There isn't enough oxygen for fire.

Here's a link explaining what would happen if we didn't have the moon. Nothing too serious.

http://www.astronomycafe.net/qadir/q106....

Answer 12

NO.... There's no oxygen meaning there's no fire.

Answer 13

noooo

Answer 14

no oxygen= no fire. no oxygen on the moon --> no fire. a bomb/ missile launched from earth wouldn't make it to the moon bc gravity would keep it near earth (like satellites).

Answer 15

A camp fire wouldn't work on the moon because the moon has little to no atmosphere. The wood in a campfire is the fuel and once heated to a sufficient temperature it begins to consume oxygen and burn. No atmosphere means no oxygen means no fire.

However plenty of other things burn on the moon. Fuels that are pre-oxidized (meaning they contain oxygen in there molecular make up) like jet fuel and black powder can burn as long as they have the necessary heat. Things that burn with out oxygen are the things that tend to explode instead of burn. For example, black powder explodes because it contains oxygen, but gasoline only burns and cannot explode unless mixed with air.

Space ships have tanks full of oxygen and hydrogen which they burn in space. A rocket fueled by hydrogen and oxygen after hitting the moon will most likely explode if sufficient heat is produced by the crash to ignite the resulting cloud of hydrogen and oxygen.

And what is this a 3rd grade field trip?! The Sun doesn't burn! It fuses hydrogen atoms togethor which is nothing like chemical combustion! Why are people who have obviously never taken a science class answering Astronomy & Space questions?!

Answer 16

No, oxygen is needed for fire. However, most bombs are what's called "high explosives" That means that the material already contains oxygen, like nitroglycerine (dynamite). Dynamite would blow up on the moon. Gunpowder would not.

Answer 17

Combustion requires oxygen.  There is no atmosphere on the Moon that supplies oxygen, so no traditional combustion is possible.

Many kinds of chemical explosives actually supply their own oxygen mixed with the explosive and require only enough initial ignition energy to start the chemical combination process going.

Rocket engines work this way too -- rocket fuel burns on the Moon in a rocket engine because the oxygen is fed from a tank carried in the rocket.

Answer 18

If the missile had oxygen it could explode or burn.  That is how the Apollo Missions lifted off the moon.  They had their own oxygen!

Answer 19

this answer it easy..yes..many things can burn on the moon...just like the sun keeps on burning but there is no oxygen up there...

here is how it works. in the sun, they are many explosions similar to a nuclear bomb.. after one explosion, the energy release in that explosion rams atoms with each other, that forceful romance of atoms sparks another explosion making the cycle continue and increase ;just like the domino's effect...this is the reason why the sun sometimes has black spots; because those are the parts were the blast cooled down and no exploration replaced it

now, in the moon... things will burn, but quickly burn off because there is no oxygen...so if you want something to burn, you need a lot of explosions to happen one after another...

did this answer you question or you need more details...if you need more details just ask me

Answer 20

yup spazzymcgee is right the sun is just one big fusion reactor not a car engine.  christ ignorance is aggravation.  and you can get a missile to the moon with sufficient fuel.  and if you didn't have sufficient fuel you could get creative and use the earths gravity to slingshot you outwards towards the lunar landscape.  

oh yeah and no oxygen means no fire in case you didn't somehow gather that from the first hundred answers to this question.

Answer 21

http://www.windows.ucar.edu/tour/link=/e...

They took off in the Lunar Module by squirting water? There's more than one way to skin a cat

Addendum: The great thing about conventional wisdom is that it always changes...b***s

Answer 22

no

Answer 23

NO oxygen --- it is a vacuum!

A bomb or a missile would explode as usual-- the oxygen is contained inside the bomb's explosive materials.

Answer 24

nope...no oxygen=no fire

Answer 25

it cant catch on fire but you can blow it up with a atom bomb