I agree that some portion of the atmosphere of planets can or is being lost to space.
You say that the cause is the solar wind; I do not disagree with that, but you seem to imply that the quantity is extremely small and the solar wind is the only cause (or reason) for atmospheric loss.
I’m sure that you agree that the planets gravitational field and the atmospheres temperature also have a large bearing on the magnitude of the atmospheric loss.
If we can agree on these basic assumptions, then we can study the phenomenon further.
For instance, we can figure out why the planet Mars has less atmosphere than Earth or Venus.
Also we can investigate questions of why the moon has so little atmosphere and why the comets leave a trail of gas behind their path.
Once we have successfully understood each other on these questions then we can advance further and tackle the question of: Why does Earth have a thermosphere?
After that, we can continue further and find out how fast the molecules in the thermosphere move and IF radioactive molecules exist in that area and IF such molecules can impart kinetic energy to the surrounding molecules.
If we come to a mutual understanding of all that information, then we can start asking the real hard questions.
re: Seems that we are on the same conceptual page finally.
The whole thread (37 posts)
- A snippet for Johannes
- re:Interesting, Thank you alcaray