☁️ THE GREAT ATMOSPHERE
PAGE 1 OF 5, A BLANKET OF AIR
BLUE SKY
PRESSURE, BREATH AND WEATHER
The atmosphere is a thin film of gas, mostly nitrogen with oxygen for animals and carbon dioxide for plants, trapped by gravity. Air has weight: sea-level pressure is about 101 kilopascals, enough to support a column of mercury in a barometer. As you climb a mountain, fewer molecules press down, so pressure drops and boiling water cools at lower temperatures. Almost all weather happens in the lowest layer, the troposphere, where temperature usually falls with height until you reach the tropopause boundary near jet-cruise altitude.
⚡ DID YOU KNOW?
If Earth were an apple, the atmosphere would be thinner than the peel, yet it carries storms, sound and the chemistry that keeps us alive.
AIR!
GASES
🌬️ ~78% nitrogen
🫁 ~21% oxygen
💧 Variable water vapour drives storms
🫁 ~21% oxygen
💧 Variable water vapour drives storms
AURORA
✨ Charged particles spiral in high layers
🧲 Follow magnetic field lines
🧲 Follow magnetic field lines