How big is the Earth’s atmosphere?
“We are sinking to the bottom of a huge ocean.” The word was said by Toriselli, the scientist who invented the barometer. That’s right. At the bottom of that sea we humans are living like ants. And the planet called Earth is floating in space with us. And the atmosphere around the earth. Three-quarters of which are within just 11 kilometres of the earth’s surface. If you go farther, the thickness of the air becomes smaller and smaller.
The Karman line is the name of a line 100 kilometres away from the earth’s surface. It is considered the boundary between outer space and the earth. Its distance is 1.57 parts of the radius of the earth. However, when the spacecraft returned to Earth, but at a distance of 120 km, it began to collide with the particles of the atmosphere. The spacecraft also has a special defense system to prevent damage from the collision. So how far is the Earth’s atmosphere actually? The European Space Agency (ESA) has used 20 years old data from the Soho Observatory. According to them, the name of the region just outside the Earth’s atmosphere is Geocrona. And the extent of this geocorona is far beyond the boundaries of the moon. Geo means earth. And corona means crown. In other words, Geocrona means the crown of the earth.
Scientists have known about Geocrona before. You know, it’s basically made up of hydrogen atoms. However, it was not known exactly how far it was spread. This time it was found to extend almost twice the distance from the orbit of the moon. The average distance of the moon from the earth is 3 lakh 64 thousand kilometres. And the extent of Geocrona is 6 lakh 30 thousand kilometres. The distance is 50 times the diameter of the earth. This means that the moon revolves around the earth from inside the earth’s atmosphere.