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Stauffer, D.

Publications and source records attributed to Stauffer, D..

Cloud base levels for Jupiter and Venus and the heteromolecular nucleation theory

For purified binary gas mixtures like NH3-H2O or HCl-H2O, partial pressures appreciably greater than the two saturation partial pressures are needed to condense the gas mixture into small solution droplets (homogeneous heteromolecular nucleation). Thus without foreign nuclei, clouds are not as easily formed as in the theories of Lewis; the latter should be valid only if large condensation nuclei are available. We calculate here from classical homogeneous heteromolecular nucleation theory the threshold partial pressures necessary to achieve droplet nucleation for the gas mixtures NH3-H2O (Jupiter), HCl-H2O (Venus), H2SO4-H2O (Venus), and C2H5OH-H2O (laboratory).

Stauffer, D.↗