What happens when a gas gets too hot?

Question

Well, that's if air can get too hot...

I know solids turn into liquids and liquids into gas but what happens if gas just gets hotter and hotter. Does is simply just keep expending or does it maybe explode from all the energy?

Answer 1

If you have bi-atomic molecule (like oxygen O2 for instance) getting it hot enough will dissociate the molecules yielding atomic oxygen (O as opposed to molecular O2). Then getting it hotter still will ionize the gas atoms (so you will have O+, that is oxygen that released one of its electron to from a plasma "soup" with the positively charged oxygen ion mixed with free roaming negatively charged electrons). Keep heating it more and you will ionize a second electron, and so on until you have "naked" nucleus (fully ionized atoms) with electrons. At that temperature, there is a good chance that it would be hot enough for the nucleus to fuse together, especially if those would be the lighter atoms (like hydrogen) and if the pressure and density are also high enough; you'd basically reconstituted the conditions existing at the core of stars.

Keep heating it more, and you'd start dissociating nucleus instead, leading to a mix of protons and neutrons (along with the already released electrons). More heat could perhaps dissociate the nucleons into quarks, but that would need to be verified with the atom smashers like the super collider.

Answer 2

Just keeps expanding.

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Answer 3

gas molecules get ionised and become plasma  the 4th state of matter.

Answer 4

keeps expanding 'til it explodes