News tagged with atmosphere
Simulations unravel mysteries of 2009 Jupiter impact
(PhysOrg.com) -- During July of 1994, both amateur and professional astronomers were captivated as comet Shoemaker/Levy 9 broke apart and slammed into the atmosphere of Jupiter. While these types of impacts ...
Space & Earth / Space Exploration
Mar 30, 2012 |
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Ultra-cool companion helps reveal giant planets
(Phys.org) -- An international team of astronomers led by David Pinfield of the University of Hertfordshire has found a brown dwarf that is more than 99% hydrogen and helium. Described as ultra-cool, it has ...
May 10, 2012 |
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Probing hydrogen under extreme conditions
(Phys.org) -- How hydrogen--the most abundant element in the cosmos--responds to extremes of pressure and temperature is one of the major challenges in modern physical science. Moreover, knowledge gleaned ...
Apr 13, 2012 |
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Super-Earth unlikely able to transfer life to other planets
While scientists believe conditions suitable for life might exist on the so-called "super-Earth" in the Gliese 581 system, it's unlikely to be transferred to other planets within that solar system.
Mar 20, 2012 |
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Study: Arctic sea ice decline may be driving snowy winters seen in recent years
A new study led by the Georgia Institute of Technology provides further evidence of a relationship between melting ice in the Arctic regions and widespread cold outbreaks in the Northern Hemisphere. The study's ...
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Feb 27, 2012 |
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Increasing rainfall may affect winds: study
(PhysOrg.com) -- Falling raindrops produce friction as they drop through the atmosphere to the ground, and this dissipates the kinetic energy, converting it into diffuse heat. Now researchers in the US have ...
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Feb 24, 2012 |
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Physicists surprised by disappearing and reappearing superconductivity in iron selenium chalcogenides
(PhysOrg.com) -- Superconductivity is a rare physical state in which matter is able to conduct electricity -- maintain a flow of electrons -- without any resistance. This phenomenon can only be found in certain ...
Feb 22, 2012 |
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In distance space, a water world: Hubble reveals a new class of extrasolar planet
(PhysOrg.com) -- An international team of astronomers led by Zachory Berta of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) made the observations of the planet GJ 1214b.
Feb 21, 2012 |
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A new kind of metal in the deep Earth
(PhysOrg.com) -- The crushing pressures and intense temperatures in Earth's deep interior squeeze atoms and electrons so closely together that they interact very differently. With depth materials change. New ...
Dec 19, 2011 |
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Voyager 1 hits new region at solar system edge
(PhysOrg.com) -- NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft has entered a new region between our solar system and interstellar space. Data obtained from Voyager over the last year reveal this new region to be a kind of cosmic ...
Space & Earth / Space Exploration
Dec 05, 2011 |
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Hubble sees a spiral within a spiral
(Phys.org) -- NASA's Hubble Space Telescope captured this image of the spiral galaxy known as ESO 498-G5. One interesting feature of this galaxy is that its spiral arms wind all the way into the center, so ...
22 hours ago |
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Fungi shifted plant balance of power
Cooperating with fungi didn't just help the earliest plants spread across a barren, rocky landscape; it also played a decisive role in the rise of more complex plants with roots and leaves that make up most ...
May 24, 2012 |
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Geological record shows air up there came from below
(Phys.org) -- The influence of the ground beneath us on the air around us could be greater than scientists had previously thought, according to new research that links the long-ago proliferation of oxygen ...
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
May 23, 2012 |
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Environmental group measures methane seeps in the Arctic
(Phys.org) -- A team of researchers, led by Katey Walter Anthony, of the University of Alaska, has been studying and mapping so-called seeps, holes in lake ice near the edges of glaciers where methane is bubbling ...
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
May 21, 2012 |
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Toxic mercury, accumulating in the Arctic, springs from a hidden source
(Phys.org) -- Environmental scientists at Harvard have discovered that the Arctic accumulation of mercury, a toxic element, is caused by both atmospheric forces and the flow of circumpolar rivers that carry ...
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
May 21, 2012 |
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Atmosphere
An atmosphere (from Greek ατμός - atmos, 'vapor' + σφαίρα - sphaira, 'sphere') is a layer of gases that may surround a material body of sufficient mass, by the gravity of the body, and are retained for a longer duration if gravity is high and the atmosphere's temperature is low. Some planets consist mainly of various gases, but only their outer layer is their atmosphere (see gas giants).
The term stellar atmosphere describes the outer region of a star, and typically includes the portion starting from the opaque photosphere outwards. Relatively low-temperature stars may form compound molecules in their outer atmosphere. Earth's atmosphere, which contains oxygen used by most organisms for respiration and carbon dioxide used by plants, algae and cyanobacteria for photosynthesis, also protects living organisms from genetic damage by solar ultraviolet radiation. Its current composition is the product of billions of years of biochemical modification of the paleoatmosphere by living organisms.
For more information about Atmosphere, read the full article at
Wikipedia.
This text uses material from Wikipedia and is available under the GNU Free Documentation License.
