A lot of people wonder...does the moon have gravity? Yes it does. Everything that has mass has a gravitational field. If there wasn't any gravity on the moon this astronaut would leap up and continue out into space. There is less gravity on the moon than there is on Earth, so people weigh less on the moon and can jump higher, but there is still gravity. The astronaut is attracted to the surface of the moon. Now atmosphere is a different story. The Moon doesn’t have a dense atmosphere like Earth, but it does retain just enough of an ultra-thin layer of atoms to make things interesting. This thin gaseous layer, which is some 100 trillion times thinner than Earth’s atmosphere, is called an exosphere. It may be the most common type of atmosphere in the solar system. A few particles of gas surround the moon surface, but not nearly enough to sustain life. Any atoms around the Moon get boiled off into space very quickly. But the surface of the Moon is blasted with a stream of particles from the Sun– the solar wind– which act like a gentle abrasive which sputters sodium and potassium atoms off the lunar surface like sand pebbles. Argon and helium are the most abundant atoms in the lunar exosphere.
Don't let the word exosphere fool you, this is not like atmosphere, it is so thin, the gases so few, that the surface of the moon is as close to a vacuum you can get. No air, no sound, no life.
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Mrs. TaylorI love science! Everything about the world is interesting and never boring. I love to study plants, animals, insects, and people. My favorite subjects are my students who are the most unique organisms on the planet! Categories |