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Earth Atmosphere facts

While investigating facts about Earth's Atmosphere and Earth's Atmosphere Layers, I found out little known, but curios details like:

Despite being used to make balloons float and our voices squak, helium is a rare element (on Earth) which is only getting rarer due to the fact it floats out of our atmosphere. This is problematic, as it has useful scientific applications, and is currently essential in MRI technology.

how earth's atmosphere changed over time?

A chimp, named Ham, originally from Cameroon, was sent into space and recovered alive in a test to ensure that a human being could survive space flight and perform useful functions outside Earth's atmosphere. He died at 25 and is buried at the International Space Hall of Fame in New Mexico.

What's earth's atmosphere made of?

In my opinion, it is useful to put together a list of the most interesting details from trusted sources that I've come across answering what's earth's atmosphere like. Here are 50 of the best facts about Earth Atmosphere Composition and Earth Atmosphere Height I managed to collect.

what's earth's atmosphere?

  1. The inventor of leaded gasoline also invented Freon. Thomas Midgley, Jr. possessed "an instinct for the regrettable that was almost uncanny." and "had more impact on the atmosphere than any other single organism in Earth's history."

  2. A sound produced on Earth sounds very different if produced on Mars. The composition and pressure of the Martian atmosphere distort sounds to a lower pitch, and planetary.org has samples for you to hear.

  3. Clair Cameron Patterson was counting lead isotopes in rocks to find the age of the earth, after finding the age of the earth he also found out there was unhealthy amounts of lead in the atmosphere caused by tetraethyl lead, Patterson campaigned to stop the use of tetraethyl lead and won in 1978.

  4. Manhattan Project mathematician Richard Hamming was asked to check some arithmetic by a fellow researcher. Hamming planned to give it to a subordinate until he realized it was a set of calculations to see if the nuclear detonation would ignite the entire Earth's atmosphere.

  5. The Earth's oceans absorb 25% of the carbon dioxide (CO2) that is released into the atmosphere every year. However, because of the increasing amounts of CO2 into the world's atmosphere, the world's oceans are slowly turning acidic.

  6. There is a satellite orbiting Earth that is predicted to re-enter the atmosphere in 8.4 million years, carrying a message addressed to the beings/humans and civilizations of the future.

  7. All the 360 kilogrammes of lunar soil samples brought back from the Apollo missions have now rusted after corroding their vacuum bottle seals and being exposed to water and oxygen in the Earth's atmosphere.

  8. Rainforests are responsible for roughly one-third (28%) of the Earth’s oxygen but most (70%) of the oxygen in the atmosphere is produced by marine plants.

  9. The Sun is actually white, it just appears yellow to us through the Earth's atmosphere

  10. About Apophis (Egyptian god of death and darkness), an asteroid that will pass earth closer than our own satellites orbit on Friday 13th, 2029. It will touch our atmosphere, and we will be able to see it wiz overhead. There is a debated chance of it impacting Earth when it returns in 2036.

earth atmosphere facts
What earth's atmosphere is like the glass in a greenhouse?

Earth Atmosphere data charts

For your convenience take a look at Earth Atmosphere figures with stats and charts presented as graphic.

earth atmosphere fact data chart about Earth atmosphere temperature change in last 140,000 years
Earth atmosphere temperature change in last 140,000 years

earth atmosphere fact data chart about Fireballs entering Earth's Atmosphere reported by US governm
Fireballs entering Earth's Atmosphere reported by US government sensors 15 Apr 1988 - 15 Mar 2019

Why earth's atmosphere is important?

You can easily fact check why earth's atmosphere oxygen by examining the linked well-known sources.

Spiders can use Earth's electrostatic field to propel themselves up to 2.5 miles into the atmosphere.

300 million years ago insects could get really big. Millipedes and centipedes could get larger than humans, dragonflies as big as eagles, beatles the size of a large dog.The leading theory is that ancient bugs got big because they benefited from a surplus of oxygen in Earth's atmosphere. - source

If Earth stopped spinning suddenly, the atmosphere would still be in motion with the Earth's original 1100 mile per hour rotation speed at the equator. All of the land masses would be scoured clean of anything not attached to bedrock. - source

After the assassination of Julius Caesar a large comet hit the Earths atmosphere, it was seen in Rome and China, and may have been brightest daylight comet in recorded history, it led to Caesar being Deified, an Imperial Cult, and the building of the 'Temple of the Comet Star'.

The Earth casts its shadow onto the atmosphere. It is visible during twilight as a blue or purple band just above the horizon. - source

When earth's atmosphere formed?

General Motors chemist Thomas Midgley Jr. invented both chlorofluorocarbons and leaded gasoline, having "more impact on the atmosphere than any other single organism in Earth's history."

How earth's atmosphere formed?

Titan's atmosphere is denser than Earth's, with 1.45 times the surface pressure. The atmosphere is so thick and the gravity so low that you could play planes very very easily, and even humans can fly there by attaching 'wings' to their arms and flapping.

There is so much space debris in earth's atmosphere that in future it may just become dangerous to leave earth and we may get trapped in our own garbage.

The earth's atmosphere used to contain much more oxygen creating gigantic bugs and insects

There is an exposed bedrock near Hudson Bay, Canada that is 4.3 billion years old. It is the oldest known rock and was around when the earth was only 200 million years old with no atmosphere or oceans.

On Titan, the atmosphere can hold the equivalent of about 10 meters of liquid before rain forms vs. only a few centimeters on Earth. So Titan's weather is expected to feature torrential downpours causing flash floods, interspersed by decades or centuries of drought.

Earth atmosphere infographics

Beautiful visual representation of Earth Atmosphere numbers and stats to get perspecive of the whole story.

earth atmosphere fact infographic about This Exxon Mobil chart from 1982 predicted by 2019 our atmos

This Exxon Mobil chart from 1982 predicted by 2019 our atmospheric CO2 level would reach approx 415 parts per million, raising global temperatures roughly 0.9 deg C. Earth crossed


When does earth's atmosphere end?

It is predicated that all multicellular life on Earth will die out from a lack of CO2 in the atmosphere in 800 million years, 6.59 billion years before the earth is engulfed by the red giant sun

In 8 million years the LAGEOS satellite orbit will decay, and it will re-enter Earth's atmosphere, carrying with them a message to any far future descendants of humanity, and a map of the continents as they are expected to appear then.

Tiny ocean plants called phytoplankton contribute 50 to 85 percent of the oxygen in Earth’s atmosphere.

Objects entering Earth's atmosphere heat up primarily because as they fall they cause the air in front of them to compress and get hot, NOT from the friction with the air.

How earth's atmosphere has changed over time?

Tardigrades are tiny creatures that are capable of removing the majority of their body water, allowing them to survive in extreme conditions; atmospheric pressures of up to 600 times that of the surface of the earth, 300 degrees below zero and even the vacuum and radiation in space.

I learned of Thomas Midgley Jr., who ""had more impact on the atmosphere than any other single organism in Earth's history". He played a big role in inventing of leaded gasoline in 1921. After that, he joined a team that invented Freon.

The USSR proposed a doomsday ship; full of fissile material navigating Soviet waters, which would automatically detonate if it detected nuclear war on Soviet territory, filling the earth's atmosphere with a radioactive cloud.

The fingernails of astronauts usually fall off because the space suit's gloves can't replicate Earth's atmospheric pressure

Digital cameras were developed so spy satellites could send images back to earth more quickly. Before digital cameras in 1976, spy satellites used film. After the film was shot, the satellites loaded the footage into capsules and dropped them from orbit into the atmosphere for collection.

Nearly 2,500 atomic weapons have been detonated on Earth - 520 of them atmospheric. In 1958 alone, the US detonated 75 weapons. 928 were detonated in Nevada as late as 1992.

Between 90 and 95 percent of meteors that approach Earth burn up in our atmosphere. The asteroid that entered Earth's atmosphere in 2013 over Russia broke 15 miles above the ground and generated a shock wave equivalent to a 500-kiloton explosion

China has lost control of its first space station. It will be entering Earth's atmosphere in 2017, and there is a chance that parts of the station could survive the burn, falling to Earth and causing damage or injuring people

It has been well argued that the sky is red and orange in Edvard Munch's famous painting The Scream, because the eruption of the volcano Krakatoa in 1883, was so massive, that it disrupted the earth's atmosphere. This caused the sky to turn blood red at sunset.

The real color of the sun is white. It just appears yellow to us due to earths atmosphere scattering the higher wavelengths of light.

If Earth's entire atmosphere froze solid and fell to earth, it would form a snowy layer of nitrogen, oxygen, and argon 330 feet (100 m) thick.

The Earth is surrounded by a bubble of bacteria residing in the upper atmosphere

Vladimir Komarov who was a Russian cosmonaut.He was burned to death during re-entering the Earth's atmosphere,crying in rage and cursing the people who had put him inside a botched spaceship.

A that the sun burns white and it's only because of Earth's atmosphere that we see it as yellow.

Ice is predicted to change into a metal at pressures above 4.8 TPa (or ~48 million times the Earth's atmospheric surface pressure). At even more extreme pressures, it could melt into a quantum liquid.

This is our collection of basic interesting facts about Earth Atmosphere. The fact lists are intended for research in school, for college students or just to feed your brain with new realities. Possible use cases are in quizzes, differences, riddles, homework facts legend, cover facts, and many more. Whatever your case, learn the truth of the matter why is Earth Atmosphere so important!

Editor Veselin Nedev Editor