The ability of vacuum is to suck?

Question

The ability of vacuum is to suck and there is no atmosphere of moon. So why are the lunar surface materials not suck by the vacuum?

Answer 1

But vacuums do NOT suck ! The ultimate vacuum is empty space, of course, and it does absolutely nothing but be there. Vacuums exist and they do absolutely nothing. Nothing is sucked by a vacuum...

Now molecules, particles, and things in general move. And they move from areas where they are packed in high density to areas where they are in low density. This is how wind is created, for example: In general it is areas of high pressure in the atmosphere blowing into areas of low pressure. Now, you may well protest to me that it is rather the areas of low pressure that are "sucking" air in from the area of high pressure... but that's just a relative point of view. The reality is that air and other fluid material blows. Vacuums just passively sit there.

So what about the common household vacuum cleaner you ask?.. Doesn't a vacuum cleaner "suck" all the dirt off the carpet? Well, no: actually the vacuum cleaner is just a fan that creates an area of relatively low pressure inside the machine which then calls the denser air outside to "blow" in carrying in some of the local flora and fauna in with it.

So then you'll ask, well, what's going on when I suck on a straw? Well, you're actually using your mouth and upper throat muscles to expand the space inside your sealed mouth, which lowers the ambient pressure inside your mouth to something less than one atmosphere. The weight of the whole atmosphere above you then presses down on your drink and forces it up through the straw into your mouth to reach an equilibrium. You're not sucking. Your creating the right conditions for the Earth's atmosphere to blow your drink into your mouth.

You may well ask, then why doesn't Earth's atmosphere just "blow off" Earth into the vacuum of space? Well, at the top of the atmosphere, that's exactly what does happen. The thing is, at that altitude, Earth's gravity is capturing and attracting molecules of air back into the atmosphere at the same rate, and it balances out.

So in your Moon example, it's not about sucking: you're really asking me why moon dust and sand and so forth don't just "blow off" the Moon into space. The answer is gravity. The Moon pulls it all down on itself, just like planet Earth holds all its stuff, humanity included, down to Earth.

Now although the Moon has enough gravity to hold its moon dust to itself, it doesn't have enough gravity to sustain an atmosphere, so GAS is an example of something that would always "blow off" the Moon if you tried releasing some at the lunar surface....

...or... if you absolutely insisted... you could indeed say that the vacuum around the Moon is continually "sucking" all its potential atmosphere off into empty space all the time!

It's complicated.

Answer 2

It's a mistake to think that a vacuum "pulls" at matter. But matter in a vacuum will tend to spread out to fill whatever space is available. A vacuum cleaner would be a good example; it's not that the vacuum cleaner really sucks. It's just that the motor pushes air out of the inside, then other air from outside pushes it's own way in.

so it's not that the vacuum of space pulls at the dust and stuff on the lunar surface. And even if it did, it would have to be a very strong pull to overcome the Moon's gravity.

Answer 3

Vacuums are indiscriminate. If one have been to by some skill seem contained in the troposphere, it would pull in not in basic terms clouds, yet in addition the ambience itself and something contained in the ambience interior sight. A vacuum is basically the absence of an atmosphere... the organic reaction of disclosing a vacuum to an modern environment, is that the vacuum pulls contained in the exterior environment till the two structures are equalized (at which factor that's now not a vacuum). A black hollow, on the different hand isn't a vacuum. A black hollow is an merchandise who's gravity is so reliable that not even mild can get away from it. Having a black hollow contained in the troposphere might wreck the finished planet in a remember of seconds.

Answer 4

There really is no such thing as suction, only low pressure and high pressure. Your vacuum cleaner (a misnomer) works by creating low pressure inside itself, and then the higher pressure in the air in the room the dirt into it. Since there is no source of higher pressure on the moon, the lunar surface material just sits there.

Answer 5

Good question .. not sure .. perhaps gravity keeps the material on the surface and not sucked out into space. Also, if there is no atmosphere on the moon, that would seem to mean as the other poster said, they share same air pressure as space, hence no air movement.

Answer 6

well a vacuum is the absence of air. Nothing is being sucked in, on, or around the moon. And no, the atmosphere didn't get sucked away either.

Answer 7

think of it like this... you got an aquarium, its sealed off from the top, divided down the middle.

attach a vacuum pump to one side and suck most of the air out of it.

now you have two glass cells, side by side, one with air, one without. Open a small door in the partition and what happens? Air rushes from the one cell to fill the other.

now, attach the vacuum and suck the air out of BOTH cells. Open the door in the partition... nothing happens.

Even though both contain vacuum and 'vacuums suck' they are both the same. There is no flow from one to the other.


On the Moon, the rocks and regolith (dirt) are sitting in a vacuum, surrounded by vacuum. Its like the aquarium.

Answer 8

The moon and space are all part of the same vacuum. So there is no difference in pressure for anything to "suck" anything else.

Answer 9

The moon's mass is approximately 7.35e22 kg with a density about 3/5 that of Earth. It's gravitational pull is about 1/6 of Earth's

Answer 10

b/c the materials are already in the vacuum. the only time the vacuum will experience the suction is if it's exposed to air.