Celestia Forums

In solarsys.ssc, the data of The Earth's atmoshpere is 60 kilometers
Is is too thin? I searched some website,
The Earth's atmosphere thickness is about 1000 kilometers.
Shall we change the data to be more accurate?

And anyone have the moons' amtoshpere data of our solar system?
I just know Europa, Ganymede, Callisto, Enceladus and Triton have a thin atmosphere, anymore?

AlexChan wrote:In solarsys.ssc, the data of The Earth's atmoshpere is 60 kilometers
Is is too thin? I searched some website,
The Earth's atmosphere thickness is about 1000 kilometers.
Shall we change the data to be more accurate?

And anyone have the moons' amtoshpere data of our solar system?
I just know Europa, Ganymede, Callisto, Enceladus and Triton have a thin atmosphere, anymore?

Oh God, NO. The atmosphere has a continuous density distribution as function of altitude. It certainly does not drop to zero at a particular, well-defined point. So there are clearly various definitions of the altitude of an atmosphere in terms of the density ratio, cpmpared to the planet's surface. Celestia has a much too primitive way of displaying atmospheres for any more sophisticated such definitions. While there may still be molecules of air out to 1000km, most of the air is "gone" around 60 km of altitude.

Bye Fridger

Really? I heard it was mostly "gone" at around 62 km, instead of 60 km...

I could be wrong though...

t00fri wrote:

AlexChan wrote:In solarsys.ssc, the data of The Earth's atmoshpere is 60 kilometers
Is is too thin? I searched some website,
The Earth's atmosphere thickness is about 1000 kilometers.
Shall we change the data to be more accurate?

And anyone have the moons' amtoshpere data of our solar system?
I just know Europa, Ganymede, Callisto, Enceladus and Triton have a thin atmosphere, anymore?

Oh God, NO. The atmosphere has a continuous density distribution as function of altitude. It certainly does not drop to zero at a particular, well-defined point. So there are clearly various definitions of the altitude of an atmosphere in terms of the density ratio, cpmpared to the planet's surface. Celestia has a much too primitive way of displaying atmospheres for any more sophisticated such definitions. While there may still be molecules of air out to 1000km, most of the air is "gone" around 60 km of altitude.

Bye Fridger

Oh, I understand now! Thanks for telling!

PlutonianEmpire wrote:Really? I heard it was mostly "gone" at around 62 km, instead of 60 km...

I could be wrong though...

I certainly wouldn't argue about a +-1/60 = +-1.7 % effect

Again, the definitions of where to apply the "cut" may vary slightly.

Bye Fridger

Oh, alrighty. Thanks!