The further away from Earth, the less dense the atmosphere
REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, ARIZONA — When climbing Mount Everest, they routinely carry oxygen cylinders with them. Oxygen cylinders help them breathe freely at high altitudes.
This is necessary because the closer you are to the edge of the Earth’s atmosphere, the less oxygen is available compared to the amount found at sea level. But where is the boundary of the Earth’s atmosphere?
Variable earth’s atmosphere consists of several layers. Each layer has the character of changes in temperature, chemical composition, density, and the movement of gases in it.
Each layer of the atmosphere plays a role in ensuring our planet can host all kinds of life, doing everything from blocking cancer-causing cosmic radiation to creating the pressure needed to produce water.
“As you get further away from Earth, the atmosphere becomes less dense,” Katrina Bossert, physicist outer space at Arizona State University, said Live Science via email.
“The composition also changed, and lighter atoms and molecules began to dominate, while heavier molecules remained closer to the Earth’s surface.”
As you move up in the atmosphere, the pressure, or weight of the atmosphere above you, weakens rapidly. Commercial aircraft have pressurized cabins. Rapid changes in height can affect the thin eustachian tube that connects the ear to the nose and throat.
“This is why your ear can burst during takeoff in an airplane,” said Matthew Igel, assistant professor of atmospheric sciences at the University of California, Davis.
Eventually, the air becomes too thin for conventional aircraft to fly at all, with the aircraft unable to generate sufficient lift. This is an area that scientists have designated as a sign of the end of our atmosphere, and the beginning of space.
This point is known as the Kármán line, which was taken from the Hungarian-American physicist Theodore von Kármán, in 1957. According to BumiLangithe became the first to try to define the boundary between Earth and outer space.
–
