Sublimation
Process in which a material changes from a frozen solid to a gas without passing through the liquid state. Whether a material will sublimate, melt, or vaporize depends on the temperature and pressure of its environment. For example, if the pressures are low enough, water ice will turn directly into water vapor as the temperature increases, bypassing the liquid water stage.
Modified from image source: http://serc.carleton.edu/images/research_education/equilibria/h2o_phase_diagram_-_color.v2.jpg.
An example of a material that sublimates here on Earth is frozen carbonElement commonly found in meteorites, it occurs in several structural forms (polymorphs). All polymorphs are shown to the left with * indicating that it been found in meteorites and impact structures: a. diamond*; b. graphite*; c. lonsdalite*; d. buckminsterfullerene* (C60); e. C540; f. C70; g. amorphous carbon; h. carbon nanotube*. Click on Term to Read More dioxide, CO2, ‘dry ice’. At room temperature and 1 atmosphere of pressure, frozen CO2 turns directly into a gas. Sublimation occurs in many places in the Solar SystemThe Sun and set of objects orbiting around it including planets and their moons and rings, asteroids, comets, and meteoroids.. Two examples are the sublimation of water from cometary nuclei as the cometConglomeration of frozen water and gases (methane, ammonia, CO2) and silicates that that formed in the outer solar system and orbits the Sun. In recent years, the description of comets has shifted from dirty snowballs to snowy dirtballs with more dust than ice. However, the ratio is less than 10-to-1. Click on Term to Read More approaches the SunOur parent star. The structure of Sun's interior is the result of the hydrostatic equilibrium between gravity and the pressure of the gas. The interior consists of three shells: the core, radiative region, and convective region. Image source: http://eclipse99.nasa.gov/pages/SunActiv.html. The core is the hot, dense central region in which the and the sublimation of the polar ice caps on Mars during the Martian summer.
