What is the earth’s atmosphere?

You and I live at the bottom of a great ocean of air that surrounds the earth and that extends upward for hundreds of miles.  We call it to the atmosphere.

We could not live without it and the oxygen it contains.

It keeps the earth’s temperature from becoming too hot or too cold.  It also keeps out some harmful energy from the sun.

The atmosphere is made up mostly of nitrogen and oxygen.  But theirs are arise small amounts of other gases present, too.

There is always some water vapor and dust in it, too.

The earth holds the atmosphere to it by the pull of gravity, otherwise it would drift off into space.

The atmosphere is made up of different layers.  The bottom one, the troposphere, holds most of the air living things breathe.

The higher above the earth you go, the thinner the atmosphere becomes until it gradually fades into interplanetary space.,

Visual source:  adventures

What is a shooting star?

Bright Star

SHOOTING STARS ARE TINY METEORS THAT GLOW WHITE HOT WHEN THEY HURTLE FROM OUT OF SPACE INTO THE EARTH’S ATMOSPHERE.

If you look up at the sky long enough on a dark, clear night, you may see the fiery streak of a “shooting star” flash across the sky.

While “shooting star” may be a pretty name, it is not accurate, for real stars are great glowing balls of gases far out in space.

The “shooting stars” that streaks across the sky are bits of rock and metal called meteors.  Many billions of meteors zip around through space.

Many of them come so close that they are captured by earth’s gravity, and are pulled toward earth.  As the speeding meteors hurtle into the earth’s atmosphere, friction with the air causes them to glow white hot.  Then we see them as blazing trails of lights.

Meteors rarely blaze for more than a few seconds.  Most of those we see were originally no bigger than a grain of rice.  They usually burn up before they reach the ground.

Meteors that survive their fall and land on earth are called meteorites.- johhnywonder

“What is a shooting star?”

Shooting Star

Shooting stars are tiny meteors that glow white hot when they hurtle from out of space into the earth’s atmosphere.  If you look up at the sky long enough on a dark, clear night, you may see the fiery streak of a “shooting star” flash across the sky.

While “shooting star” may be a pretty name, it is not accurate, for real stars are great glowing balls of gases far out in space.  The “shooting stars” that streaks across the sky are bits of rock and metal called meteors.  Many billions of meteors zip around through space.

Many of them come so close that they are captured by earth’s gravity, and are pulled toward earth.  As the speeding meteors hurtle into the earth’s atmosphere, friction with the air causes them to glow white hot.  Then we see them as blazing trails of lights.

Meteors rarely blaze for more than a few seconds.  Most of those we see were originally no bigger than a grain of rice.  They usually burn up before they reach the ground.  Meteors that survive their fall and land on earth are called meteorites.

Photo courtesy:  nasa