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adamginsburg t1_je4o8a8 wrote

It has to stay stuck together as a molecule, as NaCl bonded together, to be NaCl gas, otherwise it's a mix of atomic Na+ gas and atomic Cl-. That's probably how it comes out of the dying AGB stars. Gas doesn't have structure, though. It just fills whatever vessel it's in. If that's the ISM, it just spreads out until it's pressed on by something else.

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