Why aren't we crushed by the weight of Earth's atmosphere?

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Air gets thinner the greater you enter elevation, however air still taxes all of us the time.
(Image credit: Oscar Wong through Getty Images)

Miles of air cover Earth. The border in between Earth’s environment and deep spacethe Kármán line, has to do with 62 miles( 100 kilometers )above the world’s surface area. About 99.9 % of the mass of Earth’s environment lies listed below a height of 30 miles (48 km), according to Anthony Broccolia teacher of climatic science at Rutgers University.

Air is lighter than our bodies, however all those miles of air in the environment total up to a great deal of weight. “The total mass of Earth’s atmosphere is 5.1 billion billion kilograms, or 11.24 billion billion pounds,” Broccoli informed Live Science. When it pertains to a round column of air that is 1 foot(0.3 meters)in size, “its mass is 1,663 pounds [754 kilograms],” he stated.

Why aren’t individuals squashed by Earth’s environment?

In part, it boils down to the circulation of the pressure. Air streams around your body. Eventually, the pressure from air “is exerted uniformly on all parts of a person’s body — it is not just a downward force,” Broccoli stated.

Still, the pressure the environment applies consistently on our bodies is not insignificant. It totals up to roughly 14.7 pounds– about the weight of a big bowling ball– per square inch (1 kg per square centimeter), Broccoli kept in mind.

Related: Just how much does a cloud weigh?

We are not squashed by atmospheric pressure due to the fact that “our bodies have evolved over time to withstand the pressures,” stated Michael Woodchair and teacher of quantitative sciences at Canisius University in Buffalo, New York. Broccoli included that “the air inside our bodies is at essentially the same pressure pushing outward, making the pressure forces balanced.”

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This balancing of forces just takes place if air can reach all sides of your body. If you press a vacuum’s nozzle versus your hand and have it draw all the air that was continuing your skin, the force your hand then feels is the weight of the air pressing versus the vacuum tube, Christopher Bairdan associate teacher of physics at West Texas A&M University, described in a article

Air gets thinner as you increase in elevation, so air pressure minimizes with elevation also, Wood stated. This is why your ears can feel a “pop” in a plane throughout climbs and descents– it can spend some time before your internal atmospheric pressure matches the external atmospheric pressure, and the popping sensation outcomes when the atmospheric pressure on the sides of the eardrum lastly match, according to the American Academy of Otolaryngology– Head and Neck Surgery Foundation

This internal pressure from our bodies “is one reason why we cannot travel in outer space without a spacesuit,” Wood informed Live Science. “The pressure in space is essentially zero. Without the air pressure pushing down on the human body, the internal pressure inside the body would make the body inflate like a balloon until the pressure is released.”

Charles Q. Choi is a contributing author for Live Science and Space.com. He covers all things human origins and astronomy in addition to physics, animals and basic science subjects. Charles has a Master of Arts degree from the University of Missouri-Columbia, School of Journalism and a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of South Florida. Charles has actually gone to every continent in the world, consuming rancid yak butter tea in Lhasa, snorkeling with sea lions in the Galapagos and even climbing up an iceberg in Antarctica.