Atmospheric Pressure

The Standard Atmosphere is a unit of pressure.

• It is a kind of Metric used in Planetology.
• It is a measure of the atmosphere of a world.
• Atmospheric pressure may also be measured in bars and millibars.

Description (Specifications)

The descriptions of Atmospheres are given in the relative terms of Standard Atmospheres, rather than the absolute units, as a method of making comparisons to the human physiological norm easier.

One Imperial Standard Atmosphere is defined as being precisely equal to 100 kPa (kilopascals), based on the old Terran Standard Atmosphere of 101.325 kPa. The pascal is a unit of force used to quantify pressure and is defined as one newton per square meter.

• The Atmosphere was originally based on the mean surface atmospheric pressure of Terra.
• The standard abbreviation is atm.

Atmosphere Types

Within Charted Space, the atmospheres of worlds are rated according to a standard scale, based on their mean surface pressure.

• Atmosphere code 0: Vacuum Pressure Atmosphere (less than 0.001 atm)
• Atmosphere code 1: Trace Pressure Atmosphere (less than 0.1 atm)
• Atmosphere codes 2 and 3: Very Thin Pressure Atmosphere (between 0.1 and 0.42 atm)
• Atmosphere codes 4 and 5: Thin Pressure Atmosphere (between 0.42 and 0.7 atm)
• Atmosphere codes 6 and 7: Standard Pressure Atmosphere (between 0.7 and 1.5 atm)
• Atmosphere codes 8 and 9: Dense Pressure Atmosphere (between 1.5 and 2.5 atm)
• Typically Atmosphere code A+: Very Dense Pressure Atmosphere (above 2.5 atm)
• Typically Atmosphere code B+: Extreme Pressure Atmosphere (above 100 atm)

History & Background (Dossier)

The Atmosphere was first defined as a unit of pressure on Terra prior to the foundation of the Terran Confederation. It was defined as the mean surface pressure of Terra's atmosphere. The true atmospheric pressure of a world can vary, even on Terra: the local atmospheric pressure can vary from the standard by as much as 15%, affected by weather, temperature, tides, and altitude. Technologists found the Atmosphere useful as the concept of the Technology Level and standardized ideas about sophont society development began to take form.

The Imperial Standard Atmosphere is based on the old Terran Standard Atmosphere, and is metrically defined to be exactly 100 kPa.

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References & Contributors (Sources)

This page uses content from Wikipedia. The original article was at Atmospheric_pressure. The list of authors can be seen in the page history. The text of Wikipedia is available under the Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

This list of sources was used by the Traveller Wiki Editorial Team and individual contributors to compose this article. Copyrighted material is used under license from Mongoose Publishing or by permission of the author. The page history lists all of the contributions.

• Traveller Wiki Editorial Team
• Author & Contributor: Lord (Marquis) and Master Scout Emeritus Adie Alegoric Stewart of the IISS
• Author & Contributor: Lord (Marquis) and Master of Sophontology Maksim-Smelchak of the Ministry of Science