Why is Space a Vacuum

Atrocities · #1 January 28th, 2004, 05:32 AM

Why is Space a Vacuum

Forgive this obviously stupid question but I really do not understand this. Why is space a vacuum? How is it a vacuum? Is everything being sucked into something creating a vacuum? I am serious, I honestly do not understand the principle, albeit I am sure, a simple one.

Say you open an oxygen tank in space, the pressure in the tank is far greater than the pressure out side of it so yes, the gas will escape. But what happens to it afterward? Does it form an oxygen bubble or simply dissipate? If it dissipates, where does it dissipate to?

Could someone please explain the concept of vacuum of space for me? I would enjoy reading it.

Phoenix-D · #2 January 28th, 2004, 05:35 AM

Space is a vaccum because there is little to nothing -there-. Vaccum is just lack of pressure. Nothing there, nothing to exert pressure..

Given enough time and nothing external to stop it, gas will expand to fill any available space. In the case of your oxygen bottle, that amounts to the entire UNIVERSE. So the pressure is very low even when there is something there.

narf poit chez BOOM · #3 January 28th, 2004, 05:35 AM

i think what you are asking is, does the air exert presure on the container or does the vacuum actually suck?

i would say that the air exerts presure becuase there is 'nothing' in space to suck, although i have wondered about this to. i mean, how come nobody seems to wonder about this?

so, Phoenix-D, why does it exert pressure?

[ January 28, 2004, 03:37: Message edited by: narf poit chez BOOM ]

Phoenix-D · #4 January 28th, 2004, 05:36 AM

The air exerts the pressure. Or tries to.

narf poit chez BOOM · #5 January 28th, 2004, 05:39 AM

Atrocities · #6 January 28th, 2004, 05:40 AM

Since space is so expansive, endless really, we could never hope to fill it with anything that we can breath.

So if oxygen occurs on our planet, whey does it now occur naturally in space?

How do we over come the obvious danagers that make space space? I have read about things like cosmic winds, megnetic storms and microscopic particle currents and such, so space is not devoid of gasses and such. Just look at a nebula. They are not dispersed into nothingness to fill the void, so if a nebula can exsist as a nebula, a collection of gasses, why can there not be a oxygen Nebula?