Mon Prof Augmenté
Layers of Air Above Earth
Age 13 Geography
Earth's atmosphere is stacked in layers, and each one sits at a different height. The higher you go, the thinner the air becomes, and each layer has its own things happening in it.
Step by step
- The airliner flying among the clouds in the troposphere, the lowest layer, reaching up to about 12 km.
- The weather balloon floating in the stratosphere, home of the ozone layer, from about 12 to 50 km.
- The burning meteor in the mesosphere, from about 50 to 85 km, where most space rocks burn up.
- The space station orbiting in the thermosphere, from about 85 to 600 km, where auroras glow.
- The small satellite in the exosphere, the outermost layer, thinning away into space.
Examples
- A passenger flight cruising at about 10 km is still inside the troposphere, near the top of the clouds.
- A shooting star you spot at night is a speck of dust burning up in the mesosphere.
Key takeaways
- From lowest to highest the layers are troposphere, stratosphere, mesosphere, thermosphere, exosphere.
- Almost all weather and about three quarters of the air's mass are in the troposphere.
A quiz goes with this lesson
Three questions asked a few days later, to check the idea stuck — not that the picture was seen. In the app, with a subscription.