Is there friction in space or only in an atmosphere likes earths?

Question

Im curious because of the laws of motion in space, yey or nay or am i a furry fool in need of some "edjew-mi-cation"?

If its true that friction does not exist then why do we have problems traveling to other planets or great distances in space, if speed is constant, well i guess even at great speeds the the other planets in our solar system are far

Answer 1

There is a small amount of friction in space, due to the sparse distribution of hydrogen and other material floating around out there. However, it is extremely tiny, so, for example, you would probably encounter more of it going through the Earth's atmosphere than flying all the way from Earth orbit to Proxima Centauri (a distance some 10^11 times as great). In a true vacuum, there would be far less friction even than that, although it's possible quantum mechanics would cause a very small amount of it anyway (think of flying across the entire Universe and hitting less than you would traversing the Earth's atmosphere).

As for getting to other stars, it's not friction that's the problem there. It's just plain speed. We could indeed send a spaceship to some other star system (and in fact certain spaceships, such as Pioneer and Voyager, are already heading out into interstellar space), but right now we don't have the technology to get there in less than a few thousand years. It's not friction, it's just plain distance- an enormous amount of it.

Answer 2

There are three parts to this answer.

(1) Friction, in the sense of things rubbing against each other, is only significant within an atmosphere, as others have pointed out. Virtually no friction of this type in deep space.

(2) You asked why it takes so long to travel to planets. As you suggested, the distances are great. Fuel is not the major problem; mostly, vehicles in space are coasting, without using power. The primary propellant is gravity. Once, in a journey to Jupiter, I think, a spacecraft first whipped around Venus to get a "gravity assist" on its way to Jupiter.

(3) There is something akin to friction that comes out of Einstein's General Relativity, although its magnitude is small. Nobody has mentioned this one yet. Here, I'll quote from Brian Greene, "The Fabric of the Cosmos": "The physics ... has been known since 1918 ... general relativity [shows] that just as a massive object warps space and time -- like a bowling ball resting on a trampoline -- so a rotating object drags space (and time) around it, like a spinning stone immersed in a bucket of syrup. This is known as 'frame dragging' and implies, for example, that an asteroid freely falling toward a rapidly rotating neutron star or black hole will get caught up in a whirlpool of spinning space and be whipped around as it journeys downward."

So this isn't exactly friction in space, but it acts somewhat like friction to deflect the direction of freely falling objects.

Answer 3

Tricky question.

In a true vacuum, there would be no friction caused by air. Friction would still exist between to objects in that vacuum, but then it wouldn't really be a vacuum.

Earth's atmosphere extends farther than you might think. Man-made satellites have to be corrected for the drag caused by it frequently or they'd undergo orbital decay and reenter the earth.

In deep space (the moon or farther away from a planet or satellite with an significant atmosphere) the amount of atmosphere is negligible and Kepler reigns supreme

Answer 4

There is ABSOLUTELY no friction in space. For there to be friction yo need air or some kind of external force of resistance and in space, it is a vacuum. There is only the problem of inertia or an objects tendancy to stay in motion once it has come or is attempting to stop like why we have motion sickness or when your thrown forward inside a fast moving car when it stops. The problem with travel to places in the universe is of course the distance to those objects is beyond comprehension or is tremendous so we havent fond a means to exceed the speed of light yet.

Answer 5

There is friction in space, but not the way you are used to it. Most is particles emanating from the Sun, so called "Solar wind". If you see a comet's tail it's always pointing away from the Sun no matter what direction the actual comet is traveling due to this "wind". The reason the comet (which is more or less like a big snowball) becomes heated and releases gases that produce the tail when it comes "near" the Sun is this friction.

Answer 6

There is friction only when 2 things interact. So, if you are rubbing 2 things together in space, there is friction.

A body moving through space (a vacuum) does not have air resistance (aka drag, aka friction) because by definition there is nothing in space, and hence no interaction.

In reality, we believe there is stuff in space, it is just very sparse... so there is a little friction from time to time.

Answer 7

There is no friction in space, but there is something slowing down every probe we have launched into deep space and we are not sure what it is yet. It could be the gravitational pull of the sun or some other form of energy. Outside the heliosphere could be another story however.

Answer 8

Friction is never zero, even in vacuum. According to quantum physics very often and everywhere two particles come to existence and shortly after it the eat each other again (annihilation).
The friction is small compared to in the earth atmosphere near the ground.

Th

Answer 9

There is no friction in space only emptiness and cold. Other planets in space may have an atmosphere and were there is atmosphere there is friction.

Answer 10

Friction is caused by matter rubbing againest each other. Being as how there is extremely little matter in space, encountering friction would be a very rare event.