An Explanation Of Why Earth’s Atmosphere Is NOT Leaking Off Into Space And Does Not Need A Dome

Let's talk a little bit about Earth's Atmosphere.

There exists a movement right now which is attempting to challenge the accepted and observed spherical shape of the Earth. One of the arguments made by proponents of this movement is that they are under the impression that Earth's atmosphere should be escaping into space because there's not a dome preventing the gas from leaking into the vacuum of space.

This is wrong and is not at all how atmosphere works.

To first address the argument of proponents of this movement. The reason that you can't have a vacuum next to the ambient air pressure HERE AT THE SURFACE OF THE EARTH is because AT THE SURFACE OF THE EARTH the air pressure is 1 atm. This means that AT THE SURFACE OF THE EARTH there is a constant force of 14.69 psi on all surfaces that are exposed to the atmosphere. If you have a vacuum chamber and you open the door, there is now nothing providing a normal force to that 14.69 psi. As we know, Force = Mass * Acceleration. You have 14.69 psi of air mass with nothing providing a reaction force, the air will be pushed into the vacuum chamber.

This air pressure AT THE SURFACE OF THE EARTH is due to the fact that we are UNDER our atmosphere. Since we are UNDER our atmosphere and the atmosphere has mass, gravity gives the atmosphere weight. We feel the weight of the atmosphere as air pressure because gravity is PUSHING the mass of the atmosphere towards the ground. Since there is this constant force, the air will be forced into any low pressure cavities to equalize the pressure.

This air pressure is NOT present at the Karman line, which is what we consider the line between the atmosphere and space. At the Karman line, there is essentially ZERO air pressure. Now, this should make a lot of sense. If I am under you, I feel your weight. If I am on top of you, I do not feel your weight. If you are on top of the atmosphere, the weight of the atmosphere isn't producing the same air pressure there as it does BELOW the atmosphere because gravity is pushing it TOWARDS the earth, not away from it.

You can verify this pressure gradient yourself. Air pressure will drop with altitude (which would not happen if we were in a closed container) so to verify this all you need is cheap barometer, a microcontroller capable of streaming the barometer measurements, a balloon, and some helium. Watch as the barometer measures a drop in pressure as the balloon rises! You can also verify this by climbing tall mountains or simply charting a plane to take you to several thousand feet with a barometer.

So there is no air pressure PUSHING the atmosphere mass into space at the Karman line, so the analogy immediately fails. But what WOULD cause our atmosphere to leak off into space?

This CAN happen. As we all know Force = Mass * Acceleration. The dominant force on the atmosphere's mass is the earth's gravity, ergo the atmosphere currently is being accelerated towards earth until something pushing back (creating the air pressure). So if you want to REMOVE the atmosphere mass from the earth you have to accelerate that mass to a speed called ESCAPE VELOCITY. Escape velocity is the speed relative to the Earth that you need to be moving to escape Earth's gravity well. Escape velocity for the earth is 11.186 km/s. Currently the atmosphere averages a speed close to the rotation of the earth, so it's moving about 0.4 km/s. So there is a significant amount of acceleration and force needed to remove the atmosphere mass from earth.

Currently the only forces present that can do this is solar wind and solar EM radiation. This is what we currently think happened to the atmosphere on Mars. Without a magnetic field to protect its atmosphere, the gas atoms on mars were bombarded by sheets of high energy particles moving at near the speed of light. Like bullets from a gun they would hit the gases and drag streaks of gas away from Mars, and with ~1/3 Earth gravity, Mars did not have the grip strength to cling onto its gas blanket and is now largely naked. Shameful.

Luckily that's not the problem we have here on earth. Earth's spinning iron core provides us with a very OBSERVABLE and MEASURABLE magnetic field that is plenty strong enough to block the grand majority of solar wind, and with 3 times the gravity of Mars, Earth has no problem maintaining its atmosphere.

In Summary and TLDR, atmosphere atoms have mass and will not just move randomly off into space. There is no air pressure at the Karman line and thus no force pushing the air mass out into space (remember F=MA) The atoms are currently coupled to the earth's gravity, to leave earth's gravity well you would need a significant force to accelerate the atmosphere atoms mass up to escape velocity. There is no such force acting on Earth's atmosphere as the solar wind is blocked by Earth's magnetic field. So, in accordance with Newton's laws of motion, the atmosphere atoms will NOT wander randomly off into space but will instead stay coupled to the surface of earth.

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Let's remember, atmosphere has mass. Since it has mass, there need to be a FORCE present if it is changing acceleration. If you think something is accelerating the mass of the atmosphere off into space from 0.4 km/s to 11.186km/s, what is that force and how can we measure it at the Karman line?