01. What is atmosphere? What is it like? (A K2S Question)

From The Space Library

Stick your arm out and wave it around, you are feeling the atmosphere. The Earth's atmosphere is composed mostly of nitrogen and oxygen molecules with other minor gases. We breathe the oxygen. The air pressure we need decreases by about one-third for every five miles upward we travel from the surface. Ten miles up the pressure is one-ninth of the surface; 15 miles up it is one-twenty-seventh of the surface. Commercial jets fly about five miles up and the air is very thin. The edge of space is roughly 60 miles up and the air is so thin that commercial planes cannot fly and people could not breathe.

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Answer provided by Robert P. McCoy, Ph.D.

Question and Answer extracted from the book Kids to Space - by Lonnie Schorer

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