• Question: Does air have a weight? If so, why doesn't gravity pull it down?

    Asked by georgecade9184 to Charlotte, Dhvanil, Frank, Jim, Leila on 15 Mar 2013.
    • Photo: Dhvanil Karia

      Dhvanil Karia answered on 15 Mar 2013:

      Air does have weight but its not dense enough so gravity has less/minimal effect on it

    • Photo: Jim O Doherty

      Jim O Doherty answered on 15 Mar 2013:

      What an excellent question! Air is made up of atoms, so it does have weight. The effect of gravity is related to the “mass” of the object, and because air is a gas, the mass is very very small, so gravity doesn’t have much of an effect. It has enough of an effect to keep out atmosphere around us so it doesn’t drift off into space.

      Heres an experiment: weigh a sealed box. Then pump all the air out (so its a vacuum inside), and weigh it again. The difference is the weight of the air inside.

    • Photo: Leila Nichol

      Leila Nichol answered on 15 Mar 2013:

      It does, kind of, this is why we have an atmosphere around the earth, and the air is lighter as you get further away from the earth!

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