this post was submitted on 27 Jul 2025
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Thanks for the analogy, that really helps to put it in perspective. I was trying to work out the number of molecules per metre that would leave you with, but either my sense of scales is off kilter or I've got it wrong.
From what I can find, there are approximately 2.5e25 molecules per m^3^ at 1atm. Given an 11km cube has a volume of 1.3e12 m^3^, that gives around 2e13 molecules per m^3^ per m^3^ released. That sounds high, have I got the figures wrong somewhere?
Your numbers seem reasonable
more intuitive for me to work in terms of pressure. Atmosphere is (roughly) 1e3 Torr, good UHV can be around 1e-10, so that's 13 orders of magnitude, which is (roughly) the same difference that you calculated.