We had a summer rain shower yesterday. Afterwards I could see steam rising off the street as the water evaporated. I could walk barefoot on that street before the shower and while the water was evaporating. If the water was boiling away, surely I wouldn’t be able to walk across it without scalding my foot.
What’s going on here?
In: Planetary Science
All molecules are constantly vibrating. When there is a body of water (like a puddle) the air molecules that are touching the water molceules bounce against them and cause the water molecules to pull away from the rest of the water molecules, and they bounce up into the air, which has more space between the molecules. That’s the process of evaporation. Sometimes this process is happening so quickly that we can see a ton of water molecules getting lifted into the air – that’s what steam is.
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