Chronology | Current Month | Current Thread | Current Date |
[Year List] [Month List (current year)] | [Date Index] [Thread Index] | [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] | [Date Prev] [Date Next] |
Another interesting aspect of Venus's atmosphere:
From:
<http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/solar/venusenv.html>
"The mass of the Venus atmosphere is about 90 times that of the Earth's
atmosphere. 90% of the Earth's atmosphere is within 10 km of the surface,
whereas you have to go to 50 km to capture 90% of the atmosphere of Venus."
From:
<http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/factsheet/venusfact.html>
"Venus Atmosphere
Surface pressure: 92 bars
Surface density: ~65. kg/m3
Scale height: 15.9 km
Total mass of atmosphere: ~4.8 x 1020 kg"
From: <http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/factsheet/earthfact.html>
By comparison, for earth:
"Terrestrial Atmosphere
Surface pressure: 1014 mb
Surface density: 1.217 kg/m3
Scale height: 8.5 km
Total mass of atmosphere: 5.1 x 1018 kg"
Larry Woolf
General Atomics
3550 General Atomics Court
Mail Stop 78-110
San Diego CA 92121
Ph:858-526-8575
FAX:858-526-8568
http://www.ga.com
http://www.sci-ed-ga.org
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Frank Cardulla
> Sent: Wednesday, July 23, 2003 8:07 AM
> Subject: Venus's atmosphere
>
> Why is it that Venus has been able to retain an atmosphere that exerts a
> pressure about 90x that of the atmosphere on Earth? The mass of
> Venus is less
> than that of Earth, so its gravitational acceleration is only 8.9
> m/s2. Its
> atmosphere is hotter (about 737K vs. 288K). Even though its
> atmosphere is mostly
> CO2, with a molar mass of 44 compared to an average of about 29
> for Earth's
> atmosphere, it seems counterintuitive that it could retain such a dense
> atmosphere compared to Earth.