Gases in space, do they form little spheres like tiny planets or move like earth clouds. How do they keep themselves together?
In: Physics
If you’re talking about huge masses of gas like nebulae, then they keep themselves together with the help of gravity. Small drops of liquids tend to hold themselves in a sphere due to surface tension. gases don’t have surface tension. if they do, it’s negligible. So gases just spread to infinity
They do form a giant sphere. They keep themselves together by gravity. Most of the time the sphere will get attracted to near planet or star due to its gravity.
The short answer is gravity. Gravity exists between any two objects but it is weak unless there is a lot of mass. In the absence of any other forces a gas, or any other material for that matter, will form a sphere because of those gravitational forces.
If the cloud is small enough it will be subject to other forces and won’t be really spherical, but with enough size it will keep its shape more. Jupiter would be a good example of that.
Provided a gas cloud is big enough and not being overly affected by gravity from other objects that keeps disrupting it it will absolutely form spheres.
This is literally how stars and gas giant planets like Jupiter are formed.
Is the cloud isn’t heavy enough the pressures from the gas atoms/molecules will prevent planet/star formation because the gravity forces won’t overcome forces from the gas trying to expand.
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