We learned some interesting facts about the earth’s atmosphere recently. At first it seems like there is not much to say about it, but there is quite a lot going on.
For a start, the atmosphere is really just a thin layer of gases that surround our planet. It doesn’t seem like much, but this layer around the earth is key to our survival.
Digging a bit further, the atmosphere is what gives us some of the amazing sights we see at night time. (Depending on where we live of course).
For example:
-
Auroras (also known as polar lights or the northern lights) are formed when our magnetosphere is disturbed by solar winds. Particles from this occurence fall down into the upper atmosphere, almost like rain. As they do this, they ionize which emits the colourful lights that form these lights.
-
Have you ever seen “shooting stars”? These are meteors that burn up as they enter our atmosphere. This happens because of the sudden friction that our atmosphere causes as they enter at high speed. The burning up process results in the streaks of light we see.
What about the colour of our sky?
On a clear day, we see a blue sky. This colour is the result of the gases in the atmosphere causing light coming in from the sun to ‘break apart’ into the basic colour components of light. The blue parts of this light are scattered more than the others by the gases, which is what causes our sky to appear blue.
How about the stars we see on a clear night? Have your heard the nursery rhyme “Twinkle twinkle little star”?
Stars kind of look like they twinkle if you look closely.
They’re actually not really doing this in reality. However it looks like they do because the air moving in the atmosphere above us causes small distortions on the light waves from the stars. These wavy distortions are what cause stars to appear to “twinkle”.