At what height does Earth end and start Space?

I recently watched a video of dozens of jets taking part in an air war. These planes continue to rise in the blue-white sky when it shoots missiles at opponents, then suddenly the sky becomes pitch black, meaning it has entered "space"!

When I saw this transition, I was surprised, what I was wondering was, whether the plane could reach its height in space if it continued to fly high? And how far is the beginning of "Space" ?

According to Science ABC, the answer depends entirely on what you call "space" , and if you have a special plane that can reach such heights, you can really reach space!

However, let's first solve the basic question.

What is "space"?

It seems like a silly question, right?Space is the rest of the solar system and the wide range of the Universe. That's where astronauts come and that's what you see at night when you look at the sky.

No definition above is wrong, but it is not sufficient to help define the boundary between our planet and the vacuum environment of space.

From the Earth's perspective, space is where the atmosphere becomes thin - even to the extent that it does not exist. This is obviously a very simple and subjective definition of "space", but for the scope of this article, it will be enough to understand the difference between Earth and space itself.

The black area in the image above is "space".(Photo: SkyLine / Fotolia.com).

How high is the space?

Many people will be able to answer this question that "Space begins at the end of the atmosphere" . Although this answer is not wrong, it does not really answer the question because it will lead to the next inevitable question (suppose that a child is really curious who is grabbing your sleeve). : Where does the atmosphere end?

Again, this is an easy question to answer. You see, the atmosphere that covers our entire planet is not a single entity; instead, it is a collection of some gases and dust particles. This gas continues to thin as you go higher (in the sky). This is why most commercial aircraft cannot fly beyond 28,000-35,000 feet (about 8.5 to 10.5 km) above the ground.

Here is an illustration to make it easier to imagine:

The atmosphere is like this.

The atmosphere looks like this. Can you point out exactly what height the atmosphere ends? Probably not, because you can see that the atmosphere is a collection of thinning gas layers rather than a clearly defined entity, so it has no precise boundary.

How far do we have to fly to officially stay in "space"?

The Karman Line is near the end of the thermal floor.

Although there is no boundary that defines where space begins, but it has a limit and if it passes, you may have officially entered into space. This boundary is called " Karman line " (Karman line) , also often referred to as "the edge of space".

Karman Line is an imaginary boundary 100km from Earth and is widely recognized as the boundary between the atmosphere of the Earth and the outer space. This boundary bears the name of Hungarian physicist Theodore von Karman, the first to determine at this height, the atmosphere becomes too thin to support air flights. Put simply, it means that at this altitude an aircraft cannot operate using conventional aircraft technology to create aerodynamic lift (which requires a rocket instead). This definition is accepted by the International Aviation Federation (FAI). This is an international agency that sets air and space standards.

Note that the atmosphere still exists outside Karman line ; In fact, small particles of the outer layer (the outermost layer of the atmosphere) can be found at a height of more than 10,000 km on the Earth's surface! In this context, the International Space Station (ISS), which has an orbit of only 330-435km on Earth, does not even match its name.

Therefore, it is not the end atmosphere in Karman Road, but simply at that height, it becomes too meaningless to support flights based on "air quality". An interesting fact is: You don't have to fly over Karman to officially be considered an "astronaut" ; According to the US Air Force definition, to be an "astronaut", all you need to do is fly over 80km above average sea level!