I had a really serious thought on Monday while watching the shuttle Endeavour dock with the space station and it is a question I’ve pondered off and on so I finally looked it up. Space is a vacuum, right? No air, right? Okay.
Question: Where does all the air go that escapes from the shuttle when they open the shuttle bay doors into open space?
It seems I wasn’t the only one on Google that thought this was an important issue to resolve.
Answer: The air molecules dissipate into ever smaller molecules barely measureable by human instruments. The air molecules that are not close to earth become part of the solar winds and travel through space undetected and the air molecules that are close enough to the earth get drawn back and become part of the earth’s atmosphere again. Interesting isn’t it?
I make all disclaimers for the accuracy or inaccuracy of any I comment made.
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