Paragraph on “The Earth’s Atmosphere” complete paragraph for Class 9, Class 10, Class 11 and Class 12

The Earth’s Atmosphere

It is the Atmosphere which has made life possible on the Earth, it protects us from the harmful rays of the Sun and keeps out the cold of outer space, and it also provides a host of other conditions because of which life can thrive on this planet. It has various layers and surrounds the Earth like an insulator, 78% of it is composed of Nitrogen, 21% of it is Oxygen and the balance 1% is a mixture of gases like Carbon dioxide, Helium, Ozone etc.

The Atmospheric layer closest to the Earth is called the ‘Troposphere’ and it extends up to 10 km from the Earth’s surface, it contains most of the atmospheric gases, air currents and weather conditions. The end of the Troposphere is marked by the `Tropopause’. Above this is the ‘Stratosphere’ which is between 10 and 50 kms above the Earth. This is a relatively calm layer and has less air currents and turbulence, it because of this reason that airliners fly in this layer.

In the middle of the Startosphere is a layer formed by the Ozone gas which filters the harmful Ultra violet rays of the Sun. From 50 80 to 80 kms above the Earth’s surface is the ‘Mesosphere’. Meteors entering the Earth’s atmosphere, begin to burn up on reaching this layer. There is a very thin layer of air which extends between 80 and 500 kms from the Earth, this layer has a large number of electrically charged particles and thus radio transmissions are beamed upto this level and then directed to other parts of the world. The uppermost layer is the Exosphere which extends beyond 500 kms from the surface of the Earth, this layer has hardly or no air in it. The Air in the atmosphere gets thinner and thinner as we go higher and the temperatures vary from layer to layer as you would see in the Illustration. As we go above 100 kms from the Earth’s surface the temperatures rise to as much as 2500° centigrate in the Exosphere.