Atmosphere: Quick Facts

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Last updated

Oct. 30, 2026

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Photos and Videos

Wispy cirrus clouds stretch across a bright blue sky above trees and a river at Pinawa Dam Provincial Park in Manitoba, Canada, with sunlight illuminating the scene.

Diagram illustrating Earth's environmental spheres, with labeled sections showing the geosphere (land and crust), biosphere (living things), atmosphere (air), and hydrosphere (water), each extending vertically from the Earth's surface.

Earth's axis and sunlight

rising air in an unstable atmosphere

rising air in a stable atmosphere

Diagram of the water cycle showing processes like evaporation, condensation, precipitation, transpiration, infiltration, and groundwater flow between land, vegetation, surface water, and the ocean, with labeled arrows and color-coded soil moisture and groundwater zones.

Colorful diagram of the nitrogen cycle showing how nitrogen moves through the atmosphere, biosphere, and soil. It illustrates natural processes like nitrogen fixation, assimilation, ammonification, nitrification, and denitrification, as well as human activities such as fertilizer use and industrial emissions, with arrows and labels connecting elements like plants, animals, bacteria, and factories.

Mount St. Helens volcano

Illustrated diagram of the carbon cycle showing how carbon moves as carbon dioxide through the atmosphere, water, living organisms, rocks, and soil. It depicts processes like photosynthesis, respiration, sedimentation, volcanic activity, fossil fuel use, and carbon sequestration, with arrows indicating the flow between air, water, plants, animals, rocks, and industrial sources.

Diagram showing the layers of Earth's atmosphere from the surface upward: troposphere, stratosphere, mesosphere, thermosphere, and exosphere, with labeled altitudes, weather balloons, airplanes, clouds, auroras, meteors, and satellites for scale.

A colorful world map shows swirling clouds of aerosols in green, purple, and red, with arrows pointing to different regions and a note reading: What are aerosols?

What is Earth's atmosphere composed of?

Learn about the water cycle and how oceans act as the Earth's water reservoirs

Understand the carbon and oxygen cycles in the atmosphere

Discover how some elements escape the Earth's atmosphere and how some charged particles are stopped by the Earth's magnetic field

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Topics

sky ocean-atmosphere interaction ionosphere Ionosphere and magnetosphere 16 Questions About Earth’s Atmosphere and Weather Answered Ozone layer Kármán line Aurora Chemical equator Airglow hydrosphere earthquake population continental landform ocean ecosystem hemisphere continent geologic time region

Dig Deeper: More Articles That Discuss This Topic

Key People

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George Dollond

British optician

Joseph Priestley

Joseph Priestley

English clergyman and scientist

Joseph-Louis Gay-Lussac, engraving by Ambroise Tardieu.

Joseph-Louis Gay-Lussac

French scientist

John Dalton

John Dalton

British scientist

John Tyndall.

John Tyndall

Irish physicist

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Gerard Peter Kuiper

American astronomer

David Rittenhouse

David Rittenhouse

American astronomer and inventor

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Lloyd Viel Berkner

American physicist and engineer

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Friedrich Adolf Paneth

Austrian chemist

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George Johnstone Stoney

Irish physicist

helium

Heinrich Kayser

German physicist

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William Jackson Humphreys

American physicist

27 True-or-False Questions from Britannica’s Most Difficult Science Quizzes

ten types of clouds and their elevation: cirrus, cirrocumulus, cirrostratus, altocumulus, altostratus, nimbostratus, stratocumulus, stratus, cumulus, cumulonimbus

Earth’s Atmosphere and Clouds

Archaea at Midway Geyser Basin in the Grand Prismatic Spring, Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming. Largest hot spring in Yellowstone, third largest in the world. Temp. 147-188F Dim. 250x380 ft. Archaeon, archeon, Yellowstone Geysers, algae

How the Earth Works: A Quiz