Question

How is moon's atmosphere different from earth's atmospere?

Answer 1

Glow from sodium in the lunar atmosphere. The light from the Moon’s surface has been blocked by the telescope used for this image, but the size, position and phase of the Moon are shown by the superimposed image in the center. Rayleighs are a measure of brightness. Image credit: NASA
Glow from sodium in the lunar atmosphere. The light from the Moon’s surface has been blocked by the telescope used for this image, but the size, position and phase of the Moon are shown by the superimposed image in the center. Rayleighs are a measure of brightness. Image credit: NASA
Until recently, most everyone accepted the conventional wisdom that the moon has virtually no atmosphere. Just as the discovery of water on the moon transformed our textbook knowledge of Earth's nearest celestial neighbor, recent studies confirm that our moon does indeed have an atmosphere consisting of some unusual gases, including sodium and potassium, which are not found in the atmospheres of Earth, Mars or Venus. It's an infinitesimal amount of air when compared to Earth's atmosphere. At sea level on Earth, we breathe in an atmosphere where each cubic centimeter contains 10,000,000,000,000,000,000 molecules; by comparison the lunar atmosphere has less than 1,000,000 molecules in the same volume. That still sounds like a lot, but it is what we consider to be a very good vacuum on Earth. In fact, the density of the atmosphere at the moon's surface is comparable to the density of the outermost fringes of Earth's atmosphere where the International Space Station orbits.