Christian W @num_seventy_four@qoto.org

Contrary to popular belief, nature does not abhor a vacuum.

99.9999999999999999999958% of the universe is completely empty. Give or take.

And the 0.0000000000000000000042% of the Universe which isn't empty is made of atoms – but atoms themselves are actually 99.9999999996% empty!

So everything is mostly nothing really.

When you look at it that way, it’s easy to justify eating an entire tub of ice cream.

This is a photograph of Earth and the Moon taken from 1.44 billion km away, on July 19 2013.

Everyone you've ever known is living out their life here, on this little blue jewel, glittering faintly in the sunlight.

This tiny, delicate planet is all we have in the vastness of the Universe. Every living thing on it is part of our extended family.

All of us together, against a backdrop of unending darkness.

💙

(Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute)

Science art 💜

@codepuppy CO2 is absurdly stable, which is why it's a combustion product and why Venus is full of it.

Each C=O bond in a CO2 molecule has a bond enthalpy of 804.4 kJ/mol. That works out to 8.342 eV so photodissociation would need a photon with λ > 148.63 nm. That's scary far UV.

A krypton excimer laser (146 nm) could break it, but a good catalyst would be far more efficient. :)