4 ms·
TFA mentions that the air above it gets cold and sinks creating a cold air layer, presumably it is more dense. Any idea how dense this air would be?
by seiferteric 8y ago
TFA mentions that the air above it gets cold and sinks creating a cold air layer, presumably it is more dense. Any idea how dense this air would be?
- jstanley 8y agoI don't think it would be particularly dense, it's just denser than the other air on Mars. Mars's gravity is less than Earth's, so the air will probably be less dense than the air over the arctic. EDIT: According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars , typical atmospheric pressure on the surface is about 0.6 kPa, compared to about 100 kPa on Earth. That's a bigger difference than would be explained by gravitational differences alone, so probably the fact that there is just much less atmosphere is more important. Either way, it's substantially less dense than any air you're likely to encounter on Earth.
- remcob 8y agoGravity on Venus is 0.9 that of Earth, but it's atmosphere on the surface is 90 times as dense. Surface gravity doesn't say much about atmospheric density (the mass of the atmosphere does).
- nabla9 8y agoOn earth you get atmospheric pressure 0.6 kPa around 35 km altitude. It's very low pressure.