why does fire or flames burn away into those jagged/spiky shapes?
In: Chemistry
Short answer; gravity.
Let’s look at a match for example. After you strike the match and it’s burning away nicely there’s a few things going on. The heat is vapourising the wood which releases flammable gases. These gases combine with oxygen in the surrounding air and the heat causes a chemical reaction, producing more heat. While this is going on the gases being hotter and less dense want to go up, pushing the out of the way. The air is dragged in from the bottom to replace the consumed oxygen and is dragged along for the ride.
If you light a match in the ISS, it will burn with a spherical flame as the density differences don’t make any difference.
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