Does the temperature stay the same above a certain point?

[tackyattack]

I was wondering, is there a certain point above the Earth where the temperature stays the same?

 

[russ_watters]

What do you mean by "a certain point above the Earth" (are we still in the atmosphere?) and what do you mean by "temperature" (temperature of what?)?

 

[marcus]

I was wondering, is there a certain point above the Earth where the temperature stays the same?

I agree with Russ that the question wasn't put very clearly. And I'm not sure why you ask it in Cosmo forum.

But here is some grist for your mill. Something to chew on from the Wikipedia article on "Tropopause"
==quote wikipedia==
The tropopause is the atmospheric boundary between the troposphere and the stratosphere. Going upward from the surface, it is the point where air ceases to cool with height, and becomes almost completely dry. More formally, it is the region of the atmosphere where the environmental lapse rate changes from positive (in the troposphere) to negative (in the stratosphere). The exact definition used by the World Meteorological Organization is:
the lowest level at which the lapse rate decreases to 2 °C/km or less, provided that the average lapse rate between this level and all higher levels within 2 km does not exceed 2 °C/km.
The troposphere is the lowest of the Earth's atmospheric layers and is the layer in which most weather occurs. The troposphere begins at ground level and ranges in height from an average of 11 km (6.8 miles/36,080 feet at the International Standard Atmosphere) at the poles to 17 km (11 miles/58,080 feet) at the equator. It is at its highest level over the equator and the lowest over the geographical north pole and south pole. On account of this, the coolest layer in the atmosphere lies at about 17 km over the equator. Due to the variation in starting height, the tropopause extremes are referred to as the equatorial tropopause and the polar tropopause.
==endquote==

Your question mentioned the Earth, so one naturally thinks of the immediate surroundings of the Earth. It's lower atmosphere. It's atmosphere above the tropopause. Out beyond that the VanAllen belt with its charged particles out beyond that the Solar Wind. All different temperatures.

But if you are talking about the space between the stars, then different parts of the galaxy have different kinds of rarified stuff. Different temperatures.

If you are talking about the huge emptyspaces between the galaxies there is stuff of different temperatures out there too. But one of the features you might be thinking of is the Cosmic Microwave Background----this is light and light can have a temperature corresponding to the temp of a body which would radiate that light. The CMB has a known temp. 2.75 kelvin. But the trouble is there is other stuff besides the CMB! So it is hard to pin the universe down to a single temperature.
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If you really are asking about the Tropopause, then tell us! It is place about 10 or 11 miles up where the air stops getting colder with altitude and stays pretty much the same, and then starts getting hotter with altitude as you continue going up.

It's pretty interesting, but it's not cosmology.

 

[PowerBuilder]

A super quick question while on the topic of temperature,

I was under the impression that the U is on average 2.75 degrees (Kelvin). Is this more of an average number based on..well..how big it is? Also, how on...I was going to say 'earth'...how has the U managed to maintain such an average temperature considering it's so damn big.

 

[marcus]

I was under the impression that the U is on average 2.75 degrees (Kelvin)...

That sounds like the 2.725 K temperature of the CMB (cosmic microwave background). It is fairly uniform and evenly spread out as far as we can tell. The variation with direction is only about 1/1000 of one percent.

I think it is too simple to say that the universe has that temp. Or that space between the galaxies has that temp. It is this uniformly spread out LIGHT that has that temperature.
Light has a welldefined temp if it has the ('black body curve') mix of wavelengths characteristic of the thermal glow of a generic object at a certain temp. The temp of the light is defined to be the temp of the object that would radiate that glow, that mix of wavelengths.

Just because the U if approx evenly filled with light which has a temp of 2.725 Kelvin does not mean that all the other stuff is in equilibrium with the light and has the same temp!

In the spaces between the galaxies there can be random wisps of hot ionized gas. People study the IGM (intergalactic medium). It can have temperatures of hundreds of thousands of degrees, even millions of degrees. It is highly rarified, and not uniform, and definitely not in equilibrium with the CMB.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outer_space#Intergalactic

I don't know how you would construct an "average" temperature of the U, taking all the different stuff into account.

the CMB is very beautiful and has a definite temperature of 2.725 K and fills the universe BUT there is also a lot of other stuff that is not in equilibrium with CMB and does not have the same temperature

 

[marcus]

...how has the U managed to maintain such an average temperature considering it's so damn big.

As i said I don;t think 2.725 K is an "average" temp. It is the temp of the light.

This light started out at around 3000 K. Kind of orangish glow like from a not-so-hot star with surface temperature of 3000 K.
It was the first light that got loose when the U was full of hot gas and cooled just enough to be transparent.

That was before any stars. very long time ago. The light has cooled a lot---from 3000 down to the present 2.725

It has not stayed the same temp and it will not in future. Someday it will be 2.724. Someday it will be 2.715.

It cools very slowly as the U expands.