Justfindit.se Magazine

Universe and vacuum environment

Universe and vacuum environment. How does the vacuum occur? Can vacuum in the space suck up our atmosphere? We will take a look on these questions now and we will also check how rockets can move in an empty space.

Our Universe is very fascinating. We have many different forms of existing objects but there is also an empty space. Some people believe there is some kind of dark matter and some people just experience it as empty space. I remember our fantastic reportage about Dachstein in Austria. In that article we mentioned the Stairway to Nothingness. Why am I mentioning this? What does nothingness mean? Does it have any connection to vacuum? The empty space in the Universe is most like nothingness and therefore I experienced a connection to the article mentioned above.

As an author and owner of this magazine but also as someone who likes science I have decided to write a reportage about Universe and vacuum environment.

Little bit about vacuum

Let us start with this question: how does the vacuum occur? An easy answer is to turn on vacuum cleaner and see what happens. Actually this machine should have a name like suction cleaner instead. Vacuum is devoid of matter. There is no pressure. So, if something containing pressure comes in contact with vacuum something will happen. For example humans can die after some minutes. First they become unconscious and die after that. Vacuum is lethal. Under extremely low pressure air trapped in the lungs expands and becomes devastating for our body. On the other side the body does not explode like in some movies. But in space this is not the only problem. There is it very cold and there are we exposed to strong radiation. Humans can not survive in space without proper protection.

Many people maybe think that vacuum in the space can suck up our atmosphere and do not understand why it does not happen. Actually this can be explained. First of all vacuum does not suck but matter with higher pressure will move towards the lower pressure. How is this connected to our atmosphere?

Our planet, like other planets, has gravity. This is something that pulls everything and is something at low altitude it will experience higher pressure. And if we climb upwards the pressure becomes lower. And that explains why there is no direct affect on our atmosphere. The limit between space vacuum and atmosphere has smooth transition. The pressure in our atmosphere is very low on the top which makes no real and visible difference between nothingness and something.

Rockets and Newton’s third law

In the vacuum in the space everything floats. There is no up and down or right or left and there is no external impact on floating object. Only in case of collision with other object or in case of coming closer to a gravitational field an impact can happen.

Since there is no external impact in free floating in empty space, we can ask ourselves how e.g. rockets can move?
Do you remember Newton’s third law and the action-reaction principle? There we can find the answer. With forceful expulsion of hot gas the rocket lifts off the ground. When it shoots fuel out one end, this propels the rocket forward — no air is required. You can compare it with similar situation down on the Earth. If you throw a bigger stone from the boat you will notice how the boat moves in opposite direction. That is how the action-reaction principle makes it possible for rockets to move in air and vacuum. More about this you can find at livescience.com and theguardian.com.

So, hopefully this article has been interesting for you and I hope you have enjoyed it! Science with love – Your Justfindit.se Magazine.