What If Earth Lost Its Atmosphere?
We’re alive on Earth thanks to a number of crucial features of this
planet being just right.
Our placement in the solar system’s habitable zone, the star-type of our sun and various
fundamental, physical constants have all aligned to make our world
like it is.
One key component is our atmosphere… but what would
happen if it were to disappear?
This is Unveiled and today we’re answering the extraordinary question;
What if Earth lost its atmosphere?
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Our atmosphere is responsible for regulating much of our planet’s
natural processes.
It allows us to breathe, have liquid water, and
helps protect us against harmful UV radiation from the sun.
Liquid water is one of the main ingredients needed
for life, and one of the first things we look for when searching for
other potentially habitable planets.
Without an atmosphere, though, water in liquid form
is unlikely to exist because surface temperatures could then swing
between far-off and unmanageable extremes.
In this way, an atmosphere is what makes an environment at least a little
bit predictable, and therefore survivable.
Atmospheres generally form early on in a planet’s life, with our own
developing billions of years ago.
Naturally, however, they undergo changes over time, with some shifts more severe
than others.
The atmosphere of Mars, for example, has been
all but stripped away completely by solar winds and radiation from
the sun.
Today, the remnant of the Martian atmosphere is incredibly
weak - registering about 1% the total volume of Earth’s own.
It’s thought that Mars once had flowing water in its ancient history,
and some scientists suggest that it may even have hosted life at an early
point in its existence… but the loss of its atmosphere changed all
of that.
Mercury is a similar case; because it’s so close to the
sun, almost all of its atmosphere has been stripped away as well,
leaving the planet at the mercy of the elements.
When the surface of Mercury faces the sun it
grows extremely hot, but when it faces away it’s thrown into freezing
temperatures.
There’s no atmospheric “regulator” there, making for
wild and unstable conditions.
Back on planet Earth, we are actually also losing our atmosphere… just
very slowly, and over a long period of time.
But, in the hypothetical scenario that it was all to disappear at once,
well, a lot would go wrong very quickly.
The most pressing concern would be that no-one would be able to breathe!
Every creature that depended on oxygen for survival would instantly begin suffocating.
It wouldn’t signal the end of life in general, though, with various bacteria
and exceptionally hardy creatures - like the ruthlessly versatile
tardigrade - able to survive even the vacuum of space… which
is what the surface of Earth will’ve now become!
A disappearing atmosphere would be an almost inescapable death knell for human beings,
though, unless they happened to be wearing a spacesuit at the time.
Even were you to have somehow foreseen the end of the atmosphere and
safely clothed yourself in full astronaut attire, however, the planet
around you would now be an incredibly perilous place!
The sky would suddenly go dark.
Without atmospheric particles for light to scatter
through, the usual blueness would disappear.
All of the clouds would also vanish, as would the wind.
While, in this hypothetical, the strength of Earth’s gravity wouldn’t change,
in every other aspect it’d be as though you were standing on the
surface of the moon instead of Earth; bleak and eerily quiet!
Any planes that had been flying would start to fall from the sky,
robbed of the winds they rely on… all while the birds, without oxygen
to breathe, drop to the ground as well.
But all of this would happen without the sound to accompany it.
After all, the air created for us thanks to our atmosphere is the medium through
which sound travels; take it away, and we’d be exposed to the
vacuum of space where sound can’t spread.
You might still be able to feel some vibrations through
the ground, but you wouldn’t be able to hear them.
In a pressurized spacesuit you would be able to hear yourself, even if
only for as long as the oxygen in your tank lasts.
But, even after the initial darkness and devastation, you’d
be alive to witness only some truly harrowing sights… because anyone without
a suit would also find themselves exposed to suddenly intense, unfiltered
radiation from the sun.
Their skin would blister, and severe sunburn would quickly set
in!
Elsewhere, thanks to rising temperatures, all of that vital liquid
water on Earth would begin to boil away.
Oceans, rivers and lakes would immediately heat up, spitting massive,
foggy clouds into the darkened sky like a giant storm.
Even the water inside the human body would go the same way...
It too would start to vaporize, causing skin and tissue to swell.
The moisture and saliva in the mouth would also
boil off, as the body dries and dies.
The Earth as a whole would suffer a mixed reaction.
Surface temperatures would rise and rise until - if
ever - it was able to rebuild an atmosphere anything like its previous
one… but before then, it would also be at greater risk of space
itself.
Although ineffective with the largest asteroids, our atmosphere
does burn up plenty of smaller rocks and bits of debris that come
towards Earth.
With nothing to stop them anymore, Earth could now find
itself pelted with mini meteoroids until its surface more closely
resembled that of the moon’s; pockmarked with impact craters.
Over time, the water vapour released from the boiling oceans could
well start to close in on Earth again, heating it up through a
greenhouse effect - but leaving it with a totally transformed
atmospheric make-up.
From here, it’s impossible to predict how exactly
our planet would pan out, but by now even the most resilient of
lifeforms and microbes may well have died off.
Perhaps the only upside is that Earth in itself would now boast an
incredible view of the cosmos.
Say you’d somehow achieved the impossible and survived all of
this from inside your spacesuit… with no atmosphere to block the
radiation from other stars, you’d have a totally unobstructed,
panoramic, pristine view of the universe.
According to NASA, looking at the stars from the surface of Earth right
now is like “listening to a piano recital with only a few of the keys
working”… but, now, that piano would be tuned to perfection!
Other than that, though, Earth losing its atmosphere would be a
catastrophe unlike any other.
Most creatures would die within seconds, starved of air and scorched by the sun; the
waters would boil, and the temperatures would soar; and our planet would
face an unchecked onslaught of asteroid strikes: That’s what
would happen if Earth lost its atmosphere.
What do you think?
Is there anything we missed?
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