Questions tagged [atmosphere]
Questions regarding an envelope of gasses surrounding a celestial body held in place by the body's gravity.
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Would the >100 km "knee" in Earth's atmosphere still be where MFP exceeded scale height if it were pure Ne or Ar?
There is currently one answer to How many solar system bodies have "knees" in their atmospheres? that points out that somewhere above roughly 100 km turbulent mixing drops off (thus the name ...
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Can air pressure be accumulated this way for a biodome or spacesuit?
Using plastic or rubber or something similar and transparent be inflated with each layer having a increasing pressure lessening the strain on the containing material? When one or two layers fails the ...
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Why did it take so long to notice that the ozone layer had holes in it? Which satellite provided the data?
Wikipedia says:
The discovery of the annual depletion of ozone above the Antarctic was first announced by Joe Farman, Brian Gardiner and Jonathan Shanklin, in a paper which appeared in Nature on May ...
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Why is it not possible to deorbit in a shallow glidepath?
The fiery re-entry of spacecraft has been a staple of spaceflight since the beginning, making ablative heat shielding a necessary component of any craft wishing to return to Earth intact. This is the ...
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How much sunlight gets to the surface of Titan? What would astronauts see?
Saturn being at 10 A.U. means sunlight on Titan's cloud tops is about 1/100 that on Earth's. That's 4000 times the illumination of Earth's moon. Titan's atmosphere is described as opaque smog. If ...
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Could we see the surface of Venus after the explosion of a H-bomb in its atmosphere?
The dense atmosphere of Venus is mainly composed of carbon dioxide and nitrogen, with clouds made of sulfuric acid droplets, which make optical observation of the surface impossible.
As can be seen ...
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When does an aerobraking space craft create a sonic boom?
There are a lot of variables with the speed of sound, a sonic boom is created when all of those variables meet.
the speed of sound, a critical speed known as Mach 1, and is approximately 1,225 km/h ...
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Why not bring life to Venus along with the next exploring mission?
Why not bring cyanobacteria and fertilizer to the atmosphere of Venus to improve conditions for life there by producing oxygen ?
Planetary protection could be a reason.
According to Wikipedia:
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If Mars had a denser atmosphere, how warm would it be?
Looking at Venus, Earth and Mars, the closer you are to the Sun the warmer you are. At the same time the warmer planets also have thicker atmospheres.
Planet
Minimum
Maximum
Venus
870 °F (465 °C)
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Does Venus have doldrums or horse latitudes (latitudes with lower winds)?
Because of all the heat fueling convection cells, Venus has some brisk winds especially in the upper atmosphere (up to 370 km/h).
I realize the winds are quite slow at the surface, but are there any ...
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Can we make a space blimp?
OK. Hear me out. I know that blimps float because of the buoyancy of air, and there is no air in space. But think of the way a boat floats on the top of water even though the material that the boat is ...
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What are reentry speeds of space vehicles?
I found here that the entry speed of meteors reach 48 km/s. I mean just before hitting atmosphere.
What are reentry speeds for space vehicles like the lunar command module?
What about soyuz ...
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A cloud-top colony on Venus, will it drift to the poles?
Suppose a cloud-top colony on Venus. Provided that it has no thrusting engines, where it will tend to go naturally with winds, to the equator, to the poles or elsewhere?
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What is the deepest place on Mars? Do humans need pressurized suits there?
Is there any particular deep area, trench, fissure, lava tube or otherwise on of Mars in which a person could survive with only an oxygen supply? How deep would plants or animals have to be in Mars ...
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What are the characteristics of the Earth's atmosphere near the Karman line and why?
I am wondering - what is the nature of the atmosphere in and around the transition to space at the Karman line?
It is not difficult to find references using terms like "in the atmosphere" and "out of ...
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