Kármán line
Kármán line noun: the altitude at which the atmosphere becomes too thin to support aerodynamic flight.
Noun
Kármán line
- The altitude at which the atmosphere becomes too thin to support aerodynamic flight.
- As well as being important for aircraft and spacecraft, the Kármán line is useful for lawyers—the laws that govern space are not the same as the laws that govern Earth's atmosphere!2020, Stephen Hawking, Lucy Hawking, Unlocking the Universe, Penguin UK, →ISBN
- The boundary between Earth’s atmosphere and outer space, known as the Kármán line, has been a source of controversy for years.2021 July 11, Sarah Betancourt, “Virgin Galactic to launch space plane with Richard Branson onboard”, in The Guardian
- Synonyms:
- Gabrielli-von Karman limit, Karman limit, von Karman limit
Synonyms of Kármán line
Forms of Kármán line
| alternative form | Karman line |
|---|---|
| alternative form | von Karman line |
| alternative form | von Kármán line |
Origin of Kármán line
Named after Hungarian-American engineer Theodore von Kármán (1881–1963), who calculated this limit.
Questions about Kármán line
- What does Kármán line mean?
- Kármán line means the altitude at which the atmosphere becomes too thin to support aerodynamic flight.
- What part of speech is Kármán line?
- Kármán line is a noun.
Words near Kármán line in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: Kármán line (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Cite this entry: “Kármán line.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/k%C3%A1rm%C3%A1n_line. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.