As far I understand gravity holds the air back down, but surely it isn’t like a seal where air can’t escape
In: Planetary Science
It helps to imagine if the atmosphere consisted only of a single air molecule.
It wouldn’t get “sucked” into outer space, and what would happen is that it would just randomly bounce up and down, but Earth’s gravity is always strong enough to eventually pull it back down no matter how high it got. For the particle to actually leave, it would have to surpass the escape velocity, and normal molecules just don’t go that fast unless they’re hit by something like a cosmic ray or solar wind.
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