Can asteroids contain atmosphere?
Gas is abundance in the universe, can a massive asteroid draws in these gas forming a thin atmosphere?
At a certain size, huge asteroids get classified as dwarf planets. Pluto has an atmosphere 100,000 times thinner than Earth, and Pluto is already one of the two largest dwarf planets known.
Asteroids (like everything) do have gravity, so nearby gas would be drawn to them. But it would take just very tiny distrubances for that gas to drift away, so what little there is would probably be close to undetectable.
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Content dated before 7/24/2021 11:53 AM
questionhang 7 years ago
@ our moon may be a good example, although it is much larger than a typical asteroid. For a small object, gravity dominates? Asteroid Ceres may have tenuous atmosphere. But why do Titan with similar gravity have thick atmosphere? Whether there is thick atmosphere depends on what?