By itself in a vacuum, no. Under gas pressure, when contacted by water it will react from the point of contact until all reactants are complete. I wouldn’t consider the reaction to be ‘fire’ though. At least not personally. Drop some hydrocarbons in the mix and you’ll get a fire as the oxygen produced gets something to react with.
Yes, that is how rockets get to space, for example. Earth’s atmo is ~21% Oxygen. So that is giving flames a boost. Careful not conflate “burn” with the presence of flames. In a vacuum, the flame could only exist briefly because there isnt the available Oxygen from the air. The reaction will (or might?) still happen, but without the oxygen to produce a flame.
BTW, this has been studied in microgravity aboard the ISS.
No, I get that. Not why I asked the question.
If you have a compound like potassium super oxide chatch light in a vacuum, does it still burn because it has it’s own oxidizer?
By itself in a vacuum, no. Under gas pressure, when contacted by water it will react from the point of contact until all reactants are complete. I wouldn’t consider the reaction to be ‘fire’ though. At least not personally. Drop some hydrocarbons in the mix and you’ll get a fire as the oxygen produced gets something to react with.
Speaking from experience with Potassium Superoxide, once it goes up the flames are impressive in atmosphere.
I would absolutely expect that to be true. Generate enough oxygen, and damn near everything suddenly wants to be a gas that’s paired with it.
obligatory at this point:
https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/things-i-won-t-work-dioxygen-difluoride
Yes, that is how rockets get to space, for example. Earth’s atmo is ~21% Oxygen. So that is giving flames a boost. Careful not conflate “burn” with the presence of flames. In a vacuum, the flame could only exist briefly because there isnt the available Oxygen from the air. The reaction will (or might?) still happen, but without the oxygen to produce a flame.
BTW, this has been studied in microgravity aboard the ISS.