Atmosphere Definition and 396 Threads

Why is the air colder in the upper atmosphere?

why is there no atmosphere on moon

Sorry if this is the wrong forum, I wondered if this belonged in one of the astronomy related sections but I don't know much about physics, I've never even taken a physics class. I constantly daydream about random stuff, and I thought up something the other day that was been bothering me...

Hi, I am not sure if this is the correct section for this question but it seems to involve both physics and chemistry so I will start here. In a recent conversation a friend stated that no substance within the Earth's atmosphere can be 100 percent pure. It needs to be in space or some...

Would an acidic "atmosphere" remove oxygen from the area it affected? By that, I mean, if you could make an area of air acidic, would it suck oxygen away from the surroundings?

Hi I'm a third year physics student currently working on my bachelorstage, and I have a differential equation I want to solve, but can't =). Given an planet with an atmosphere so thick relative to the planet radius, that gravitation in the atmosphere cannot be seen as a constant but decreases...

Hey all, I'm a science thriller author (www.jeremyrobinsononline.com) and I've got a new story idea with a really big problem. Basically, I need to remove all of the oxygen from Earth's atmosphere, preferably fast, but I can adapt to a longer time frame if need be. Now, this is for a novel so...

There is an unexplained mystery as to why atmosphere CO2 levels varies long term (geologically) and short term (glacial/interglacial cycle.) Contrary to what is repeated in many blogs the glacial/interglacial cycle changes of about 90ppm to 100 ppm is not due to colder oceans being able to hold...

Homework Statement Find x, the distance from your location to space, as a function of the zenith angle. The height at 0 degrees, H, is ~100km. A picture helps more: http://img23.imageshack.us/img23/3630/picture1orr.jpg Homework Equations ? The Attempt at a Solution I've...

I'm having some doubts about the standard idea of N14 + energetic Neutron > C14 + Proton. Is it possible that the generation of C14 could be a reverse form of the C14 beta decay to N14, initiated by the relativistic electrons entering the ionosphere in the auroras? An endothermic Electron...

http://www.thestar.com/article/238291 Out of curiosity, in this article it says that a generator can produce on average 200 megawatts, just enough to power a small city. Does anyone know if they meant for a year or for a day?

how would you find the pressure on an object as it rises up into the atmosphere ex. A child's helium-filled balloon escapes at sea level and 20.0°C. It reaches an altitude of 3330 m, where the temperature is 5.0°C and the pressure only 0.65 atm. What is the ratio of its volume at this altitude...

[b]1. Homework Statement [/b Estimate the pressure , in atmospheres, at the following locations:Odgen Utah(1430 m above seas level);Leadville colorado(3090 m) Mt. Whithney (4420 m) and various other cities above sea level. (assume that the pressure at sea level is 1 atm.)Homework Equations...

Homework Statement Consider a horizontal slab of air whose thickness(height) is dz. If this slab is at rest, the pressure holding it up from below must balance both the pressure from above and the weight of the slab. Use this fact to find an expression for Dp/dz, the variation of pressure...

When the sun goes down over the horizon, we can still see the sun because the light of the sun is bent by our atmosphere. I would imagine that if one were outside of our atmosphere on the far side of Earth away from the sun, yet in a path in line with that light they would also see the sun...

Are O2 levels dropping in our atmosphere? I read something a while ago that mentioned allergies are getting worse due to increasing CO2 levels in atmosphere, so I'm guessing O2 levels are dropping as well. I was in the mountains a week ago (out of a valley), and noticed how easier it is to...

Turbosphere The turbosphere (or homosphere) is that portion of the atmosphere that is sufficiently well-stirred by atmospheric motion that long-lived gases are well-mixed and do not appreciably separate by weight. Just so long as there are no nasty scents.

Homework Statement In 1988 telescopes viewed Pluto as it crossed in front of a distant star. As the star emerged from behind the planet, light from the star was slightly dimmed as it went through Pluto’s atmosphere. The observations indicated that the atmospheric density at a height of 50 km...

Dear all, I have been working my way through the Oxford University physics test sample paper http://www.physics.ox.ac.uk/admissions/combined-sample.pdf" and I have come across this question: A sky-diver jumps out of an aeroplane. Which of the following statements is true after she reaches...

Just out of curiosity, We know that the atmosphere is at a pressure of approximately 101 kPa at the sea level and decreases with height. But in space there is no atmosphere and hence zero pressure; Should that not mean that the air in the atmosphere should flow out into space like in a free...

Homework Statement why moon has no atmosphere? Homework Equations The Attempt at a Solution

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/08/080828090715.htm ScienceDaily (Aug. 28, 2008) — Oxygen is constantly leaking out of Earth’s atmosphere and into space. Now, ESA’s formation-flying quartet of satellites, Cluster, has discovered the physical mechanism that is driving the escape. It...

http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~content=a788582859~db=all G. V. CHILINGAR, L. F. KHILYUK, and O. G. SOROKHTIN, 2008, Cooling of Atmosphere Due to CO2 Emission, Energy Sources, Part A, 30:1–9, 2008 ISSN: 1556-7036 print/1556-7230 online DOI: 10.1080/15567030701568727 Heads...

Researchers think they have found traces of ammonia in Mars' athmosphere. Since ammonia is degraded quickly there, if this were true, it would mean the presence of some ammonia-producing source on Mars. THe best bets for that would be either active volcanoes or microbes, but since active...

I know it's not a bright question, but I'd like to know the answer as well. I've read that the high atmosphere of Jupiter contains molecules of Hydrogen (H_2). It is well known that (under Earth atmosphere at least), this gas is highly explosive. I just wonder why the atmosphere of Jupiter...

Is the temperature of Venus's atmosphere due solely (or primarily) to its density? What would happen if the sun's light could be blocked from its surface, would the atmosphere eventually freeze? If so, how long would it take?

Hi folks, Does anyone have a good reference for the refractive index of the near surface Martian atmosphere? (Or alternatively, the means to estimate it from readily available data!) I'm struggling to think of an equation for which I've got enough of the variables to be of use, (for...

Greetings, I was thinking about gravity on Earth. From what I know, if you are standing on the Earth's surface, all the mass of the Earth below you will pull you downwards (or more correctly, it warps the space above you which pushes you down snug to the ground). But then I thought about...

Homework Statement In the absence of an atmosphere, a star moves across the sky from horizon to horizon at a constant speed. how does the star appear to move in the presence of an atmosphere? I would say that in the presence of an atmosphere the star don't move at all because of all the...

Hi guys. I'm an anthropologist really, and won't pretend I know the finer points of physics. still, this thing bothers me, and hopefully someone on this forum thinks it's an easy question. I noticed a while back that local crafts in highland cultures - Himalayan and Andean alike! - made use...

Hai all my friend I have task from my school about Process of Clouds, Rain, and Struktur of Atmosphere when rain fall. i don't have more knowledge about it so please help me Thanks

Homework Statement #1. What would have to be the area of a person's foot in order to impact a one Earth Atmosphere pressure? What do you need to ask? Homework Equations Earth Atmoshpere pressure= ? P=Force(Newtons)/Area(m2) The Attempt at a Solution

[SOLVED] Optical Physics; Light Entering an Atmosphere Homework Statement Quoted word for word from the question sheet: A light ray enters the atmosphere of a planet and descends vertically 20.0 km to the surface. The index of refraction where the light enters the atmosphere is 1.000, and it...

I'm trying to model radiation losses from a flat surface facing the sky at night. If we ignore radiative absorption/emission in the atmosphere, the heat flux is the well-known Q=\epsilon\sigma(T_s^4-T_\infty^4) where we have the emissivity, the S-B constant, the temperature of the surface...

hi, i want to know why scattering can occur when the light beam meet the particle, dust in atmosphere or molecules in water ..., but why not when they meet the glass surface and let the electrons in the glass surface be scattered? can anyone kindly help me, and tell me more about this ? thanks...

exiting Earth's atmosphere?? could someone please explain why the shuttle needs such a great velocity to exit our atmoshere? my son would like to know why we could not use a balloon to slowly rise out,I told him that a balloon would pop because of lack of preasure and that got me thinking, if...

What keeps the atmosphere of a planet in place? THZ

Hey guys, I didn't really know where to put this and this seemed like the most logical place. Also sorry if there's already been a post like this, I tried searching and couldn't find anything. Anyway, onto the question. I'm sort of confused about some things to do with rockets and such. First...

Potential energy: so I guess one form of potential energy would be using mass and gravity and height. Question, in the real world if you take a ball up to 50' and drop it at some point it would reach terminal velocity. Then say you take it up to 2000' and drop it it, it would reach that same...

atmosphere temperature gradients at altitudes impossible?? Here's a link to a graph: http://vortex.plymouth.edu/atmosphere/layers.html" I don't understand how this is possible. The atmosphere is Warm at the surface, (due mainly to infrared heat from Earth's' surface -ok) Cold at...

Without an atmosphere, the Earth's average surface temperature would be -18 C. The moon's surface temperature averages -23 C. Is this 5 degree C difference due to heat from the Earth's core? (I'm not a student; I'm curious about the climate debate, and trying to figure some things...

I hope someone can clear up some issues about Mars's atmosphere, specifically: -- Since most evidence indicates that Mars once had surface water, I assume that it must have had a considerably more substantial atmoshpere than it currently has. --- A magnetic field is necessary for the...

A balloon can be filled with 5.0 L of "He" w/o bursting. The balloon is filled 0.5 L at a pressure of 1 atm. The balloon rises and the pressure gets lower. At what pressure will the balloon burst? I tried a few of the gas laws but I think my answers are incorrect. How do you solve this?

Here is the scheme: A craft from Earth slingshots around the moon back towards the earth, gaining some speed (and slowing the moons orbit slightly). a few days later it expends this energy skimming the Earth's atmosphere, scooping some atmosphere into its tanks. It heads back towards the moon...

The heavier elements tend to be found near Earth's surface than the lighter ones. However the most widely found element is N2 but elements like CO2 and O2 are other heavy ones so more near the Earth's surface? What about water? Is water mostly near Earth's surface or way above? If way above, is...

I want to know how we will recognize when our CO2 PPM is approaching 'Pre-Sat'/Sublimation of our atmosphere. I'm thinking if we recognize that our oceans are dying(blue green aglae and phytoplakton dying off), and some species that pollinate our flowers(bumble bees and honey bees) are going...

Why doesn't the Earth lose it's atmosphere eventually? I realize that gravity generally keeps the atmosphere close to the Earth but over a long period of time I would expect that we would lose some amount to the vacuum of space and the solor winds. Over millions of years we would lose it all...

Would global warming (with its dynamic weather systems, carbon surplus, increased radiation and humidity, etc.) encourage the vitality, diversity and interaction of unicellular life in the atmosphere?

Assume that the Earth's atmosphere has a uniform temperature of 20ºC and uniform composition, with an effective molar mass of 28.9 g/mol. a) show that the number density of molecules depends on height according to: nv (y) = (n0) e^ -(mgy)/kBT b) commercial jetliners typically cruise at an...

How Does a Space Ship reenter the Earth's atmosphere at such a great rate of speed? I understand speed in this way W=F x D. there is nothing in space for the ship to propel itself off to build this great speed.