Q: How empty is empty space?A: It...

Q: How empty is empty space?

A: It depends on where you are. Air on earth contains 10 quintillion (10,000,000,000,000,000,000) atoms per cubic centimeter. The very best vacuum chambers in scientific laboratories have as few as 10,000 atoms per cubic centimeter. According to Neil de Grasse Tyson, director of the Hayden Planetarium, the space between the planets of our solar system contains about 10 atoms per cubic centimeter, while the space between stars in the Milky Way galaxy contains an average of 0.5 atoms per cubic centimeter. In the space between galaxies, however, it is difficult to find more than one atom in every 10 million cubic centimeters.