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The atmosphere of Earth is composed of a layer of gas mixture that surrounds the Earth's planetary surface (both lands and oceans), known collectively as air, with variable quantities of suspended aerosols and particulates (which create weather features such as clouds and hazes), all retained by Earth's gravity. The atmosphere serves as a ...
The composition of Earth's atmosphere is determined by the by-products of the life that it sustains. Dry air (mixture of gases) from Earth's atmosphere contains 78.08% nitrogen, 20.95% oxygen, 0.93% argon, 0.04% carbon dioxide, and traces of hydrogen, helium, and other "noble" gases (by volume), but generally a variable amount of water vapor is ...
The atmosphere envelops the earth and extends hundreds of kilometres from the surface. It consists mostly of inert nitrogen (78%), oxygen (21%) and argon (0.9%). [4] Some trace gases in the atmosphere, such as water vapour and carbon dioxide, are the gases most important for the workings of the climate system, as they are greenhouse gases which allow visible light from the Sun to penetrate to ...
Pages in category "Atmosphere of Earth" The following 37 pages are in this category, out of 37 total. This list may not reflect recent changes. ...
Ozone-oxygen cycle in the ozone layer. The photochemical mechanisms that give rise to the ozone layer were discovered by the British physicist Sydney Chapman in 1930. Ozone in the Earth's stratosphere is created by ultraviolet light striking ordinary oxygen molecules containing two oxygen atoms (O 2), splitting them into individual oxygen atoms (atomic oxygen); the atomic oxygen then combines ...
The composition of the Earth's atmosphere is different from the other planets because the various life processes that have transpired on the planet have introduced free molecular oxygen. [7] Much of Mercury's atmosphere has been blasted away by the solar wind. [8] The only moon that has retained a dense atmosphere is Titan.
Terrestrial aeronomy focuses on the Earth's upper atmosphere, which extends from the stratopause to the atmosphere's boundary with outer space and is defined as consisting of the mesosphere, thermosphere, and exosphere and their ionized component, the ionosphere. [5]
While there are many abiotic sources and sinks for O 2, the presence of the profuse concentration of free oxygen in modern Earth's atmosphere and ocean is attributed to O 2 production from the biological process of oxygenic photosynthesis in conjunction with a biological sink known as the biological pump and a geologic process of carbon burial involving plate tectonics.