If the earth cant hold atmosphere above a particular height how can it hold the moon much farther away?

Question

With relation to gravitational pull

Answer 1

The solar wind tends to scatter any molecular-sized particles away from the earth at a certain distance, but the moon is too heavy to be affected by it.

Answer 2

Your confusion may lie in this, if there was enough gas to fill the atmosphere to the depth of where the moon is then yes our atmosphere could be that thick, but there is not that much atmosphere here. Second, the moon is far more massive then the gas of the earth so under Newtons gravity equation (i know it is out dated but it works in this case), the force between the moon and the earth is much greater then the gas and the earth, even though the moon is so much farther away. So because of things like solar wind, which push the gases off comets, at a certain point the force of gravity between earth and atmosphere will not be enough to hold the gas from the very weak solar wind force, so there is an upper limit to the depth of our atmosphere. Good question,

Answer 3

One word, motion. The moon is kept in an orbit due to the balance of two forces: earth's gravity and the Centrifugal force from its own motion. If the moon stops moving, it would fall to the earth in no time (and believe it won't be pretty:-). This is precise why you want to send a satellite into its orbit with high speed.

Answer 4

Don't forget that the moon also has gravity, which adds to the total force between earth and moon.

Answer 5

Because the moon weighs less than the atmosphere

Answer 6

atmosphere is a gas(es)
moon is a large solid mass

final answer