How and when did humans discover there was no air in space?
In: 1574
Funny bit of trivia: some self-styled scientists (who may have degrees to lend credence to their claims) still believe that interstellar space is formed out of aether and isn’t actually a vacuum.
For the longest time, scientists believed in aether because they couldn’t explain why light travels through space if there’s no medium to propagate it with.
Now we know that light is an electromagnetic wave and is self-propagating – it needs no medium. Einstein’s work in this area helped dispel that notion entirely, for most respectable scientists.
So… I don’t know the exact date, but it wasn’t until the early 1900s where prevailing scientific thought changed from “aether” to “vacuum” for the space between stars.
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