Its in the name: Condensation trail.
No condensation = no trail.
All contrails are made from engine exhaust, but not all engine exhaust becomes contrails.
You said “no condensation = no trail”
There is no circumstance under which “no condensation” exists.
Whether it freezes and crystallizes is another story but the water vapor is alway present.
Water vapour is invisible and everywhere. Condensation is when the water vapour converts to liquid droplets or ice crystals visible as cloud, in the special condition when its concentration exceeds the “saturation” concentration at that temperature, to put it simply.
If we're going to be factual, they aren't, since clouds form when water vapour (invisible and present everywhere) condenses/deposits into visible liquid droplets or ice crystals when they reach saturation pressure.
Saying a contrail isn't combustion exhaust is like saying a snowman isn't snow. The exhaust provides the water vapor and the condensation nuclei (soot) required for the ice crystals to form. The moment those crystals are visible, the 'exhaust plume' has officially become a 'contrail'.
Water vapour is a component of combustion exhaust. If the air is humid and cold enough, it freezes into clouds we call contrails. If the combustion exhaust contains anything else visible to the naked eye, you're either taking off in a half-century-old jet with water-injection or something has gone terribly wrong.
…which is contrail, because the plane shouldn’t be producing smoke unless something has gone wrong. Not to mention the trail starts a certain distance away from the engine; where condensation begins.
Nothing exceptional about this lighting to make invisible gases visible otherwise.
Cold winter skies produce the contrails more often.
This happens because the gas coming from the exhaust of the engines averages 650C or 1,000F and produces instand cloud as it condensates water vapor insantly.
Thanks for properly calling them contrails!
Yes, but not in the way you think. Everything is a chemical, including the carbon, sulfur, water vapor, and stray particulate matter that's commonly found in jet exhaust.
Nothing to make you gay though, that just came naturally.
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