Posted on 03/10/2017 9:26:53 AM PST by Lorianne
Earth's atmosphere is leaking. Every day, around 90 tonnes of material escapes from our planet's upper atmosphere and streams out into space. Although missions such as ESA's Cluster fleet have long been investigating this leakage, there are still many open questions. How and why is Earth losing its atmosphere – and how is this relevant in our hunt for life elsewhere in the Universe?
Given the expanse of our atmosphere, 90 tonnes per day amounts to a small leak. Earth's atmosphere weighs in at around five quadrillion (5 × 1015) tonnes, so we are in no danger of running out any time soon. However, understanding Earth's atmosphere, and how it escapes to space, is key to understanding the atmospheres of other planets, and could be crucial in our hunt for habitable planets and extraterrestrial life.
Sounds like the paranoid people back in the 50’s were right. We poked a hole in the atmosphere when we started sending up space rockets.
Yes, known as the colander effect. /s
“Suck, suck, suck....”
The earth is maybe passing gas? Too many bean fields.
“She’s gone from ‘suck’ to ‘blow’!”
And volcanoes, plants, and other sources produce similar materials at arguably equivalent volumes.
Sheesh!
-—that takes some pretty sophisticated measuring to determine—wonder if they weigh the amount of cosmic dust in the form of miniscule meteorites, etc., that “we” pick up every day?
I blame the coming magnetic polar reversal and associated weakening of our magnetic shield, but who really knows. Polar reversal gets my vote.
What happened to Spaceship Earth, the closed system? I guess ‘environmentalists’ lied about that too.
Or has it been going on since the day the Earth was formed, only we’re just now in a position to notice it?
Very small amount. Nothing to worry about. But will they blame this on Trump?
Global warming alarmists are deeply concerned that carbon dioxide is also escaping.
HEY ABBOTT!!!!!
BS..nothing escapes erf’s magnetic field or the sub-zero temperature range. A good example is water vapor. Ask yourself why all that water vapor does not just evaporate into space? Hint..its temperature and and magnetically related! Unless a volcano or an asteroid has enough blasting pressure, no natural elements with a molecular structure or a gravitational weight will ever leaves this planet.
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