5/3/09

Your research question for this week                                                     How far up is the sky?

A.) From http://www.blurtit.com/q726747.html, I learned that the sky starts at ground level and goes up to infinity.  There is no real boundary between the atmosphere and space.  As you go up, it merely gets thinner and thinner.  If by the sky you mean that visible blue dome overhead, that is the ozone that is found in the stratosphere, ranging between 6.21 and 31.1 miles above the surface.

         B.) From VAPL database Grolier Online: The New book of Popular Science I learned that there are many parts of our atmosphere, including the troposphere (lowest part of the atmosphere) which extends to 10-11 miles in tropical regions and 5-6 miles in regions nearer the north/south poles.  The stratosphere, just above the troposphere has a maximum height of 30 miles.  Up to 50 miles above the surface of the ground is the mesosphere, 300 miles above the surface of the earth is the thermosphere and above 300 miles is the expsphere.

C.) From the book The Sky’s the Limit, I learned the following:  The sky is made up of the atmosphere.  The differring layers include: the troposphere is between 5 – 10 miles up.  The stratosphere is between 10 – 30 miles up.  The mesosphere is between 30 – 50 miles up.  the ionosphere is between 50 – 200 miles above our planet and the thermosphere arcs over 350 miles above the surface of the earth