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by wollstonecraft 2210 days ago
But how is this possible? Water has a vapor pressure of 23 millibars at 20 C, meaning water would boil from the leaves.
1 comments

It boils but it takes many hours to boil off completely. Here's a study of the time taken to evaporate water in a near vacuum at 20C: https://www.hou.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2014/pdf/2060.pdf

25ml of liquid water takes 3 hours to completely boil off under vacuum. Less if the water is mixed in with other substances (eg. soil). The inner structure of the plant itself is capable of trapping water to an even greater extent. To the point where water directly boiling off the plant directly isn't significant.

Note that this was simulating asteroid conditions. Mars is slightly better at retaining water since it has slightly more pressure. This is why it's pretty likely that we're seeing flowing water on Mars each summer: https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-confirms-evidence-th...