Question

Zeta Anderson checks that the active nanomaterial hull of her stealth ship has managed to seal any breach to vacuum on the bridge. This, she muses, must be how the Dominator boarded the ship, it blasted through the hull, and then insinuated itself into the corridor. An emergency atmosphere supply is connected to the bridge as a potential fail-safe for restoring life support. The gases in the atmosphere canister are mainly a mixture of diatomic nitrogen, diatomic oxygen and helium. When the bridge becomes fully pressurized, the temperature of each of these gases are all 15 degrees Celsius. Which of the molecules/atoms of these gases will have the highest mean speed? Order them from slowest to fastest, and state the reason why.

Answer 1

Mean speed of molecules in a gas in equilibrium where is absolute temperature and is molar mass of gas.

Molar masses of given gases are

for Nitrogen

for Oxygen

for Helium

Mean speeds are  

, and

Lowest of the above speeds is for Oxygen as is highest of all molar masses.. Next Lowest speed is for and highest is for