this post was submitted on 10 May 2025
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Vapor dispersal. (ani.social)
submitted 4 days ago by MyDarkestTimeline01@ani.social to c/memes@lemmy.world
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[–] Eheran@lemmy.world 5 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

It has next to nothing to do with pressure, let alone temperature drop due to expansion. There are 2 things:

  1. When each one quantity of cold and warm air mix, the temperature of the mixture is almost exactly the midpoint (average), as the heat capacity is almost a constant.
  2. Vapor pressure of the water is a function of temperature and scales FAR more than linear.

So now when the hot, humid (burned hydrocarbon) air of the exhaust mixes with cold air the temperature drops a bit, but the vapor pressure drops massively. When conditions are right, the vapor pressure is now below the amount of vapor pressure that is actually present -> condensation.

vapor pressure over temperature data, note how it changes more than 2 orders of magnitude over only 100 K.

Just found this from NASA.