• Question: why is their no oxygen in space?

    Asked by 675anmh46 to Ines, Cedric on 14 Mar 2017.
    • Photo: Cedric Tan

      Cedric Tan answered on 14 Mar 2017:

      Great question!

      There is oxygen in space, just that humans are unable to use the oxygen present in space in order to breathe. On the earth, gravity holds gases such as oxygen close to Earth for humans to breathe. On planets or moons with less gravity, any gases are able to escape into space.

    • Photo: Ines Goncalves

      Ines Goncalves answered on 16 Mar 2017:

      let’s see, plants and cyanobacteria produce oxygen, which is they kept in the atmosphere by gravity, as Cedric said. In space, there are no plants or cyanobacteria or even algae to produce oxygen, so the little there is, is just too little for humans to use it to breathe. Like when you climb to the top of a mountain, there is less gravity and it’s said that the air is thinner, that is, it has less oxygen. So people that live at high altitudes have adapted to live in a place that has less oxygen (they tend to have more haemoglobin in their blood making their blood more efficient at acquiring oxygen) but visitors and climbers usually struggle. They feel light headed and get headaches, they tire very quickly. In space it would be a much more extreme case because they is much, much less oxygen.

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