Question

In the upper part of the atmosphere, the kinetic temperature of the air is of the order 1000K. Therefore one feels extremely hot.

(a) True

(b) False

I had been asked this question in exam.

My question is from Ideal Gases topic in chapter Kinetic Theory of Gases of Engineering Physics I

Answer 1

Right choice is (b) False

To elaborate: As we go up the atmosphere, the number of air molecules per unit volume decreases. The quantity oh heat per unit volume or the heat density is low. But the translational kinetic energy per molecule is quite large. As the kinetic temperature is the measure of translational kinetic energy, so the kinetic temperature is quite high in the upper atmosphere but one feels severe cold there due to low density.