The first time astronauts went to space after two wars had a major impact on various sectors of life, such as television, movies, and politics, and it set the tone for other missions almost 70 years later. The advancement in technology was such that even famous people like Katy Perry went to space and returned with less trouble than Neil Armstrong and the first people to leave Earth. For people watching, those people left the planet and came back, but that might be entirely true.
The Earth’s atmospheric boundary
The Earth’s atmosphere is an imaginary boundary that cannot prevent humans from leaving the planet, and avoiding other things, such as comets and asteroids, from entering. The further you go, there is less breathable the air becomes, and from that point, you can start measuring if you are still in the distance at the highest place on the planet (Mount Everest) or if there are just stars, planets, and space stations between you and what is out there.
On the other hand, even though there is no oxygen in space, astronauts, cosmonauts, or space tourists might not ever leave Earth’s atmosphere. NASA scientist Doug Rowland brought up the question and revealed mind-blowing information:
“As you think of the atmosphere where we live and breathe here on Earth, it doesn’t just stop right above our heads. It doesn’t stop at Mount Everest. It doesn’t stop where the planes are flying. It goes on and on up, and just gets less and less dense the higher you go. And it’s still there at a very high altitude.”
The definition of atmosphere is updated
The definition of atmosphere is what is at stake here. There are practical considerations to defy the limits of the planet, but among scientists and international organizations, the limit is known as the Kármán line – the majority of the atmosphere is below that line, but it doesn’t mean it’s where it ends. Rowland explained:
“When you go to where the Space Station is – only a couple of hundred miles above the Earth – there’s still enough air there to slow the Space Station down. And if you didn’t re-boost it with rockets, it would come back to Earth based on the air drag, just like when you’re driving your car.”
A study from February 2019 used data from the NASA/European Space Agency Solar and Heliospheric Observatory spacecraft suggests that the Earth’s atmosphere may extend nearly 391,000 miles (around 629,300 kilometers), far beyond the moon’s orbit.
Astronauts never left the atmosphere
The study discovered around 70 hydrogen atoms per cubic centimeter at around 37,280 miles (60,000 kilometers), a hydrogen cloud. So, even if astronauts placed boots on the moon, they would still be inside the atmosphere, and looking at the data provided by the organizations, the scientific team found that Earth’s atmosphere extends around 50 times its radius.
This ultimately means that the moon flies inside Earth’s atmosphere, and therefore both cosmic structures are inside the Sun’s atmosphere, as Dr. Doug Rowland says.
“So there’s this kind of dichotomy there where you go from the Earth, the Earth’s atmosphere, then you’re in the Sun’s atmosphere. And then at some point, you’re outside that when you reach the heliopause and the heliosphere boundary.”
Conspiracy theories were fueled after this research
It’s no news that people have been discussing the legitimacy of astronauts leaving the planet – even arguing the Apollo 11 mission was recorded in a studio and directed by Steven Spielberg – and the scientist’s discovery that astronauts are still inside Earth’s atmosphere will fuel that.
Recently, a movie called Fly Me To the Moon starring Scarlett Johansson and Channing Tatum approached the same conspiracy narrative that astronauts never landed on the moon.