WHAT happens when a bolt of lightning is suddenly released from the clouds and a part of it rushes downwards towards Earth?

What happens when air lodges into the human lungs and stays there for a while until it is released out into open air? From a billion lungs, a billion times every moment?

Where does the energy spawned by moving air go after it is absorbed by the green leaves of a tree or a plant, or grasses, and then let loose in another form?

All these questions are manifestations of the envelope of air surrounding Earth, called atmosphere and add to it the mysterious force called nitrogen and there we have a perfect blend of gases for the growth and proliferation of life from microbial to human life. Whatever comes in it owe their existence to the atmosphere surrounding the planet Earth.

Once upon a time, Earth did have atmosphere. Four billion years ago when the Earth was still in its infancy, gases had come into existence. But those gases were of a different kind. They seeped outward from the centre of the Earth. These gases were the residual matter left over from the creation of the planet half a billion years earlier. They were dangerous and poisonous, having escaped from Earth as it squeezed itself after the need to hold them did not exist any longer. It took about one billion years for the action to slow down and come to an end. Although toxic gases still escape from vents and volcanoes to this day, this action is only at a very small scale. Not poisonous enough for living things!

The atmosphere on Earth is a congenial blend of gases that sustain everything that harbours life forms on the planet. Some other forces that apparently are not life forms — such as mountains, oceans and sediments all over the place, also owe their existence to atmosphere in one form or another.

As you know, the composition of atmosphere has changed altogether in the past couple of billion years or so from the lethal, non-oxygen one to a conglomeration of benign gases, such as oxygen and nitrogen — so essential for plant and animal life. No more seepage from the pit of the planet, although some of it still takes place from the vents, crevices and active volcanoes that are dotted all over the Earth (on land as well as in oceans). A great deal of seepage and the resultant gases is absorbed by the vast water bodies and the hard matter on the ocean floor as well as in the vast amount of suspended sediments.

The atmosphere (from the Greek words meaning, ‘ball of vapour’) does not extend indefinitely to the sky. Thus, it becomes much too thin, or rarified to support human life at six miles, or about 10 kilometres, reduced to traces at 150km and is virtually undetectable, or non-existent at 1500km. This means that any farther and there is absolutely no gas or atmosphere of any kind. Thus the space between the two nearest celestial bodies, such as Earth and moon are empty, or a vacuum (from a Latin word meaning ‘empty’). For the pertinent reason of gravity, the atmosphere is held close to Earth, as is everything else. In fact for that reason alone Earth itself stays in close proximity of the sun, and the sun remains confined to the galaxy, the Milky Way.

We will continue our discussion of Earth’s atmosphere in the next issue and see how different factors, mostly our own actions, are playing havoc with the air we breathe.

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