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Why doesn't the Earth's atmosphere get stripped away?

I've read that the Solar System is moving at a half billion miles per hour clip. At that speed, I don't understand why the Earth's atmosphere and everything else movable on the surface doesn't get stripped away. Gravity can't be strong enough to counteract this. But apparently it is. Can't understand how something moving like a bullet can retain an atmosphere.

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  • John W
    Lv 7
    9 years ago
    Favorite Answer

    The Earth has a magnetosphere so the solar winds from our Sun are deflected around us. The Sun also has a much larger magnetosphere and the interstellar debris is deflected around the solar system. That was what all the news about Voyager 1 was about, it's passing from the heliosphere to interstellar space. The density of material is also really low and much are moving along with us so there really isn't that much of a difference in velocity. It's like don't you feel a wind on your face in a car with the window rolled up, it' cause the air is moving with you. The fact that the Solar System is moving a half billion miles per hour doesn't mean a thing, if you were moving as fast as a bullet then it would just be standing still.

  • 9 years ago

    There isn't anything to do the stripping away. Space is near-on completely empty. You don't see astronauts doing space walks with their spacesuits flapping in the breeze.

    It's half a million miles an hour, by the way, in orbit around the galaxy.

  • Thomas
    Lv 7
    9 years ago

    The solar wind is prevalent in the solar system and it pushes the interstellar medium away, so the Earth doesn't actually go into it. Meanwhile Earth's magnetic field protects our atmosphere from the solar wind.

  • the speed doesnt matter . but if you meen solar winds and radiation its because the earth hash a magnectic field created from inside the earth, where the core is spinning , the magnetism releases from the poles which stops the atmosphere being stripped away .

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  • jack
    Lv 5
    9 years ago

    There is no resistance in space and so there is no force to push back on us while the earth moves so fast. Allowing gravity to hold us with out anything happening.

  • 9 years ago

    because space is almost completely empty and there's nothing there to strip anything away

    everything is held in place by earth's gravity and is moving right along with us, no problem

  • 9 years ago

    ??? The oceans under the atmosphere and the water cycle. Or. O-zone layer.

  • 9 years ago

    Because it's really big.

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