Huge helium discovery 'a life-saving find'

Re:Huge helium discovery 'a life-saving find' by mentat on Tuesday June 28, 2016 @07:40PM (#11998454)

> Earth is too large to lose a significant proportion of its atmosphere through Jeans escape. The current rate of loss is about three kilograms (3 kg) of hydrogen and 50 grams (50 g) of helium per second.

Seems true to the tune of whatever exists minus 50 grams per second.

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Re:Huge helium discovery 'a life-saving find' by thaumasiotes on Tuesday June 28, 2016 @08:20PM (#11998635)

Earth is too large to lose a significant portion of its atmosphere. It can (and does!) easily lose a significant portion of its helium.

50g of helium per second would exhaust the current level of helium in the atmosphere in about 2.3 million years. (Atmospheric total mass 5.15e18 kg from wikipedia, composition of the atmosphere by volume from http://eesc.columbia.edu/courses/ees/slides/climate/table_1.... .) That may sound like a long time, but consider that the earth is 4500 million years old.

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