Thread: air
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micky micky is offline
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In alt.home.repair, on Tue, 20 Apr 2021 02:25:48 -0700 (PDT),
" wrote:

On Monday, April 19, 2021 at 4:29:21 PM UTC-4, micky wrote:
If the helicopter on Mars goes up, does it go up in the air? Is the
stuff near the surface of Mars "air". Or is "air" limited to earth.


Is the word "atmosphere" in your vocabulary?

Cindy Hamilton


Sure. I thought of that. I didn't look it up until now.

Dictionary.com lists both meanings (but separately):

1) the gaseous envelope surrounding the earth; the air: a weather
balloon rising high into the atmosphere.

3) Astronomy. the gaseous envelope surrounding a heavenly body: The
white ovals seen in Saturn's atmosphere could be intense storms.

From atmo-, a combining form meaning “air,” used in the formation of
compound words: atmosphere. Greek, combining form of atmós vapor,
smoke


OTOH, for "air" the only relevant meaning it has is "a mixture of
nitrogen, oxygen, and minute amounts of other gases that surrounds the
earth and forms its atmosphere." https://www.dictionary.com/browse/air

So, as I suspected, at least acc. to dictionary.com, based on the Random
House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2021, "air" is the
atmosphere of the Earth, but the atmosphere of Mars is not called air.

That didn't used to matter much, but now it seems more important.