What if Earth's atmosphere disappeared?

ArabiaWeather - Have you ever wondered what would happen if the Earth lost its atmosphere? The planet is thought to be gradually and slowly losing its atmosphere as it escapes into space. But what if the Earth suddenly lost its atmosphere all at once? How bad is it? Will people die? Can a planet recover without its atmosphere?

What if Earth's atmosphere disappeared?

• It will be quiet. Sound needs a medium to transmit waves, and if you can feel the vibrations from the ground, you won't be able to hear any sound.
• Birds and planes will fall from the sky. Although we cannot see the air (except for clouds), it has mass to support the objects that fly in it.
• The sky will turn black; The sky is blue thanks to the atmosphere.
• All unprotected plant and animal life on Earth will die.

We cannot survive for long in the vacuum of space, which is what would be the case if the atmosphere suddenly disappeared. It would be like being launched into space or being ejected from an air vent, although the initial temperature would be higher. Your eardrums will burst and your saliva will boil, but you won't die instantly.

If you hold your breath, your lungs will burst, which will be the quickest death (although it will be painful). If you exhale, you will lose consciousness in about 15 seconds and die within three minutes. Even if you are provided with an oxygen mask, you will not be able to breathe. This is because your diaphragm uses the pressure difference between the air inside your lungs and outside your body to inhale.

• Let's say you have a pressure and air suit. You will survive, but you will get severe sunburn on exposed skin because the Earth's atmosphere is filtering out solar radiation. It's hard to say how much trouble you'd have as a result of this effect on the dark side of the planet, but exposure to direct sunlight would be intense.
• Rivers, lakes and oceans will boil. Boiling occurs when the vapor pressure of a liquid exceeds the external pressure. In a vacuum, water boils easily, even if the temperature is warm. You can test this yourself.

• Although the water will boil, the water vapor will not fully replenish the atmospheric pressure. An equilibrium point will be reached where there will be enough water vapor to keep the oceans from boiling and the remaining water will freeze.

• Eventually (long after life on the surface has died), solar radiation will cause water in the atmosphere to break down into oxygen, which will react with carbon on Earth to form carbon dioxide. The air will still be too thin to breathe.

• The lack of atmosphere will cause the Earth's surface to cool. It's not absolutely cold, but the temperature will drop below freezing. Water vapor from the oceans will act as a greenhouse gas, raising the temperature. Unfortunately, higher temperatures will increase the amount of water vapor moving from the sea to the air, likely leading to runaway global warming and making the planet more like Venus than Mars.

• Organisms that need air to breathe will die. Land plants and animals will die, fish will die and most aquatic creatures will die. However, some bacteria can survive, so losing the atmosphere would not kill all life on Earth. Chemically manufactured bacteria will not notice the loss of atmosphere.

• Volcanoes and geothermal vents will continue to pump out carbon dioxide and other gases to add to the water. The most important differences between the original atmosphere and the new one will be the much lower abundance of nitrogen. Earth can regain some nitrogen through meteorite impacts, but most of it will be lost forever.

Can humans survive after the atmosphere disappears?

There are two ways humans can survive the loss of the atmosphere:

1. Building domes protected from radiation on the surface of the Earth. These cellars must be under atmospheric pressure and support plants. It will take time to build these ecological vaults, but the result will not be much different than trying to survive on another planet. There will still be water, so there will be a source of oxygen.

2. Building a dome under the sea. Water can provide pressure and filter out some solar radiation, we don't want to filter out all the radiation because we might want to grow plants (although it might be possible to learn some delicious ways to prepare bacteria as food).

Could Earth's atmosphere disappear?

The Earth's magnetic field protects the atmosphere from loss due to solar radiation. A massive coronal ejection, or solar storm, would likely burn up the atmosphere. The most likely scenario is loss of the atmosphere due to a massive meteorite impact. Large collisions have occurred several times on the inner planets, including Earth. Gas molecules gain enough energy to escape Earth's gravity, but lose only part of the atmosphere. Even if the atmosphere ignites, it will be merely a chemical reaction that changes one type of gas into another.

Source: thoughtco