Science Questions

If we lose gravity, what will happen? Will everything fly up in the air? Brian in Royston

If the Earth suddenly didn't have any gravity any more, I guess that the first thing to happen would be its effect on the atmosphere. At the moment, the atmosphere is being compressed by its own weight and squashed down onto the Earth. The first thing that would happen is that the atmosphere would expand very quickly and fly out everywhere. That might blow you up into space. If it wasn't for that, there would be any reason for you to be thrown away from the Earth. You'd just sit there and slowly get pushes around. So you'd have a huge explosion with all the atmosphere disappearing, and this could possibly blow you up into the air.

September 2006