methane gas

[admiral_ju00]

for a moment ignoring anything living that produced it, what else or how else is methane gas formed?

 

for example, some planetary bodies or their satellites, have methane(gas), methane(liquid), ethane, etc.

 

or does simply an abundance of (or contact of) Carbon and Hydrogen atoms and it form anywhere, anytime?

[budullewraagh]

H2+CO

[admiral_ju00]

yeah i know that those are the chemicals/molecules/atoms(whatever) that are needed to make methane, but my question was under what conditions will these molecules react and produce the gas methane? or is it spontaneous?

 

because for example, many things in biology would require something more than just (as in this case) the those types of molecules to be present in the same area.

 

(leaving out all the details)for example the process of extracting mtDNA/DNA from bones and producing it in quantities that is workable is a tedious process - not spontaneous, rather. you don't just throw in a bunch of chemicals into the solution where the bone lies and come up with DNA.........

[budullewraagh]

CO is extremely unstable; the C really wants to make 2 more bonds. this happens spontaneously.

[BoyGenius1]

Methane, CH4, is formed by an endothermic reaction, so it absorbs heat. Whenever a substance is formed by an endothermic reaction, it contains more energy than the parts of it alone (C+2H2), which means it is more unstable than C and H2. Whenever there is an exothermic reaction, energy is released, and the products have less energy, so they are more stable. You know that when you burn hydrocarbons (fuel), you get fire. It would take as much energy released in that fire to make the original hydrocarbons, which would absorb that energy. So the making of hydrocarbons can't be spontaneous, but in gaseous planets like Jupiter and all them, there is immense heat and pressure, so if they had hydrogen and carbon, its very easy to make it. If you want some methane (sorry to be gross), take a balloon and hold it up to a cow's anus.

Sorry if that was confusing