Flow of gases much below standard atmospheric pressure, sometimes called low-pressure gas flow. The flow may be confined to pipes between a chamber or vessel to be evacuated and a pump, or it may be the beam of molecules issuing from an orifice into a large evacuated chamber or the plume of exhaust gases from a rocket launched into the upper atmosphere, for example. The flow velocity is measured with respect to a fixed boundary such as the wall of a pipe, the surface of a rocket or jet plane, or a model in a wind tunnel.  See also: Fluid mechanics; Gas; Molecular beams; Pipe flow; Vacuum pump; Wind tunnel