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Orders of magnitude (pressure)

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Template:Orders of magnitude

This is a tabulated listing of the orders of magnitude in relation to pressure expressed in pascals.

Magnitude Pressure lbf/in2 Item
10−15 Pa
1 fPa Interstellar space pressure (approximate)
10−11 Pa
13.3 pPa Lowest obtainable pressure in laboratory conditions (as of January 2009).[1]
10−9 Pa
1 nPa Atmospheric pressure on the Moon (approximate)
1 nPa vacuum expected in the beam pipe of the Large Hadron Collider's Atlas experiment[2]
10−6 Pa
1 µPa Pressure inside a vacuum tube (approximate, varies). Reference pressure for sound in water.
10 µPa Radiation pressure of sunlight on a perfectly reflecting surface at the distance of the Earth.[3]
20 µPa Threshold of human hearing - the smallest RMS pressure fluctuation that the human ear can hear in a noiseless environment, at frequencies between 1 kHz and 5 kHz.

Reference pressure for sound in air.

100 µPa Near earth outer space pressure (approximate)
10−3 Pa
0.5 mPa Atmospheric pressure on Pluto (1988 figure; very roughly)
1 Pa
1 Pa Pressure exerted by a UK five pound note resting on a surface [4]
10 Pa Pressure increase per millimeter of a water column at Earth mean sea level.
10 Pa Pressure inside an incandescent light bulb (approximate)
100 Pa Threshold of pain. Sounds above this amplitude are unbearable and can cause ear pain. Prolonged exposure may lead to hearing loss.
103 Pa
1 kPa 0.145 psi Atmospheric pressure on Mars, 1 % of atmospheric sea-level pressure on Earth
10 kPa 1.45 psi Pressure increase per meter of a water column1, or the drop in air pressure when going from earth sea level to 1000 m elevation
101.325 kPa 14.696 psi Standard atmospheric pressure for earth sea level
180 to 250 kPa 26 to 36 psi Air pressure in an automobile tire relative to atmosphere (gauge pressure)
407 to 607 kPa 59 to 88 psi Air pressure in a champagne bottle[5].
600 to 800 kPa Air pressure in a bicycle tire relative to atmosphere (gauge pressure)
690 to 828 kPa 100 to 120 psi Air pressure in a heavy truck/bus tire relative to atmosphere (gauge pressure)
106 Pa
0.8 to 2 MPa 120 to 290 psi Pressure used in boilers of steam locomotives
9 MPa 1305 psi Atmospheric pressure on Venus (90 bar)
10 MPa 1450 psi Pressure washers force out water at this pressure
12 MPa 1740 psi Pressure exerted by a 60 kg woman wearing stilettos
20 MPa 2900 psi Pressure of a typical aluminium scuba tank or pressurized gas cylinders. (200 bar)
100 MPa 14500 psi Pressure at bottom of Mariana Trench, about 10 km below ocean surface (1000 bar)
400 MPa Chamber pressure of .50 BMG weapon discharge
600 MPa Water pressure used in a water jet cutter.
109 Pa
9 GPa Pressure at which octaoxygen forms [6] (90000 bar)
18 GPa Pressure needed for the first commercially successful synthesis of diamond
96 GPa Pressure at which metallic oxygen forms[7] (960000 bar)
100 GPa Theoretical tensile strength of a carbon nanotube (CNT)
380 GPa Pressure inside the core of the Earth (3.8 million bar)
1012 Pa
530 TPa Pressure inside an Ivy Mike-like nuclear bomb detonation (5.3 billion bar)
1015 Pa
6.4 PPa Pressure inside a W80 nuclear warhead detonation (64 billion bar)
25 PPa Pressure inside the core of the Sun.[8] (250 billion bar)
10111 Pa 4.63 × 10113 Pa The Planck pressure (4.63x10108 Bar)


  1. Ishimaru, H. (1989). "Ultimate Pressure of the Order of 10-13 Torr in an Aluminum Alloy Vacuum Chamber". Journal of Vacuum Science and Technology 7 (3): 2439–2442. 
  2. CERN. Bringing the vacuum to its lowest value. 2008-07-28. Retrieved 2008-09-14
  4. "Microbe experiment suggests we could all be Martians", The Guardian 2007-01-13, accessed 2008-03-23
  5. The Physics Factbook
  6. Template:Harvtxt
  7. 2008
  8. Williams, David R. (September 1, 2004). "Sun Fact Sheet". NASA. Retrieved on 2008-01-23.


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