Atmosphere Scale Height

The Atmosphere Scale Height of an object is a measure of the height of the object's atmosphere above the surface. Since an atmosphere has no defined edge, the scale height is defined as the height at which the atmospheric pressure decreases from the surface pressure by a factor of e ≈ 2.71828.

Atmosphere Scale Height is a read-only property that is calculated automatically by Universe Sandbox. The Atmosphere Scale Height depends on the object's surface temperature, T, and surface gravity, g:

$h = \frac{kT}{mg},$

where k is the Boltzmann constant and m is the average mass of a molecule in the atmosphere.

Property Details

Location

The Atmosphere Scale Height property is located in the Atmosphere section of the Surface tab of an object's properties panel. This section is only visible for Terrestrial Planets.

Units

Atmosphere Scale Height can be viewed or edited using the following units:

• Milky Way Galaxy radius (milky way) = 5.5×104 light year
• Parsec (parsec) = 3.08568025×1016 m
• Light-year (light year) = 9.46073047×1015 m
• Astronomical Unit (AU) = 1.495978707×1011 m
• Solar radius (sun) = 6.955×108 m
• Lunar distance (lunar dist) = 3.844×108 m
• Light-second (light sec) = 2.99792458×108 m
• Jupiter radius (jupiter) = 6.9911×107 m
• Earth radius (earth) = 6.37101×106 m
• Moon radius (moon) = 1.7371×106 m
• Kilometer (km) = 1000 m
• Meter (m) is the SI base unit for length
• Centimeter (cm) = 0.01 m
• Millimeter (mm) = 0.001 m