why are there different layers of gases around the earth?
453537
There are in fact many different atmospheric layers as you move upward away from the earth. However, there are NOT different layers of gases. All the gases are sort of mixed.\n\nThe troposphere, the atmospheric layer that we live in, contains the most gases. This is due to gravity. Anything that has mass will be attracted to earth's gravity.\n\nThat is why when you move away from the earth there is less air. Less gravity = less air!\n\nThe higher you go in the troposphere, the colder it gets. That is also due to less air (holds heat).\n\nThe next layer up is the stratosphere. This layer is where most jets fly & where the atmospheric ozone layer exists.\n\nTemperatures in the stratosphere will get warmer due to the ozone layer. Ozone is an insulator & traps heat.\n\nAs you move higher, you will reach the mesosphere. And, as you may have already guessed, this layer contains even less air. It also gets pretty darn cold as you move away from the ozone layer. "Shooting stars" occur in this layer. Meteorites burn up as they enter our atmosphere.\n\nThe last layer is called the thermosphere. It has the least amount of air. But the odd thing is that this is the hottest layer!!!\n\nSounds strange??? Well here is why...\n\nAlthough there is less air to hold heat, there is still some present. Mind you, it is few & far between. Imagine being in the Astrodome & someone across the field threw a BB at you! That is how sparse the air particles are.\n\nHowever, we have said there is air! That air that is present is constantly bombarded with nasty cosmic rays! By this time, here is so much energy in the air particles that the temperature is astronomical (no pun intended).\n\nBecause of this, the thermosphere is often called the "heat sphere", just as it's name implies.\n\nSatellites are put into orbit in the thermosphere.\n\nTo get directly to your question... there are different layers because scientists decided to name them according to temperature changes.
67966
Ozone is produced by sunlight. There is less light at the poles (due to the earth's tilt), therefore there are holes there. Very little to do with man made gasses at all. Just one more "theory" with little or no basis in truth.
1179391
Our early atmosphere consisted primarily of Nitrogen (N), Carbon dioxide (CO2), with lesser amounts of methane  (CH4), and then some other gasses like argon and rarer noble gasses.  The big difference is we didn't have any free oxygen (O2).  Oxygen was a byproduct, basically waste, of the single celled critters that lived on the earth (cyano bacteria).  They would suck up the CO2, keep the carbon and release the oxygen as O2. The earth is roughly 4.5 billion years old.  Estimates for the first life to come/develop on earth is 3.8-4.0 billion years.  From when life first developed till 2.0-2.2 billion years there was no free oxygen.  All of it as getting sucked up into geologic sinks.  Since there was no free O2, we didn't have an ozone layer, and there was significantly more solar radiation on the surface. Nothing could life on or near the surface without protection.  Some things developed protection like the stromatolites (look up sharks bay Australia if you want to see them).  It was hotter, but cool enough for free water to exist.  I hope that helps.
352873
The Earth's temperature is due to more factors than fuel use. Ozone (O3) can be broken down, leading to weakness in the atmospheric layer of the Earth. Also, certain types of smog and smoke can create a barrier between the Sun and the Earth, trapping heat in the Earth atmosphere where it should radiate into the rest of the solar system. So, if the theory is true, using less fuel helps, but does not solve the problem.
437066
The earth has four layers...\n\nTheCrust, Upper mantle, Lower Mantle and the Core refer to <http://volcano.und.edu/vwdocs/vwlessons/lessons/Earths_layers/Earths_layers1.html>\n\nThe Crust has many hollow parts like caves. Caves connected to the ocean and some undergorund river, near an instict volcano is posible of supporting life.\n\nHumans can live there but not making civilization. Just hiding from dangers on the surface such as crusaders, barbarians, dinasours, wild animals...at the present these caverns is used for safety hiding places from war, nuclear attack and for the one of the most dangerous speicies on earth and that is the Humosapiens.....
442544
1st layer-The layer which is close to the earth's surface is called the troposphere.There are dense layers of gases in the troposphere.\n\n2nd layer-Above the troposphere is the stratosphere.The statosphere has higher clouds and jet aircrafts.There is a stretch of ozone gas in the lower part of the stratosphere.This is called the ozone layer.\n\n3rd layer -Above the stratosphere is the mesophere.\n\n4th layer-Above the meosphere is the ionosphere.The ionosphere  is useful for telecommunication.\n\n5th layer-Above the ionosphere is the thermosphere.Meteors burn up as shooting stars and auroras glow in the thermosphere\n\n6th layer-Above the thermosphere is the exosphere.Exosphere is the outer atmosphere.
756113
Primary(aprox. 46 billion years ago) atmhosphere was included hydrogen, helium and ammonia. \nSecondary (current) atmosphere eveolved as volcanic activity added nitrogen, water vapor and CO2 to the atmosphere. And appearance of green plants added free oxygen to the air. \nAdditionally there are some variable components of atmosphere:two imporatnt ones; water vapor and ozone. Permanent compnonets are NITROGEN, OXYGEN, ARGON and CO2.
125194
The Earth consists of several atmospheric, hydrologic, and mainly geologic layers. Its components are the atmosphere, the hydrosphere, the crust, the mantle, and its core. The biosphere is a tiny layer in this composition and is usually not considered part of the physical layers of the Earth.\n\nThe geologic component layers of the Earth are located at the following depths below surface:\n\n0 to 60 km - Lithosphere (locally varies between 5 and 200 km) \n0 to 35 km - Crust (locally varies between 5 and 70 km) \n35 to 60 km - Uppermost part of mantle \n35 to 2890 km - Mantle \n100 to 700 km - Asthenosphere \n2890 to 5100 km - Outer core \n5100 to 6378 km - Inner core \n\nArea:\n\nTotal: 510.073 million km2 \nland: 148.94 million km2 \nWater: 361.132 million km2 \nNote: 70.8 % of the world's surface is covered by water, 29.2 % is exposed land \nLand boundaries: the land boundaries in the world total 251,480 km (not counting shared boundaries twice)\n\nCoastline: 356,000 km\n\nMaritime claims: see United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea\n\nLand use\nArable land: 10% \nPermanent crops: 1% \nPermanent pastures: 26% \nForests and woodland: 32% \nUrban areas: 1.5% \nOther: 30% (1993 est.) \nIrrigated land: 2,481,250 km2 (1993 est.)\n\n\nContiguous zone: 24 nautical miles (44 km) claimed by most, but can vary \nContinental shelf: 200 m depth claimed by most or to depth of exploitation; others claim 200 nautical miles (370 km) or to the edge of the continental margin \nExclusive fishing zone: 200 nautical miles (370 km) claimed by most, but can vary \nExclusive economic zone: 200 nautical miles (370 km) claimed by most, but can vary \nTerritorial sea: 12 nautical miles (22 km) claimed by most, but can vary \nNote: boundary situations with neighboring states prevent many countries from extending their fishing or economic zones to a full 200 nautical miles (370 km) \n42 nations and other areas are completely landlocked (see list of landlocked countries)
324301
That's because the Earth's spin is caused by electromagnetics.  Something about the electrical properties of these gasses in our atmosphere causes them to be spun around faster than the rest of the Earth.
224344
it is true that at higher altitudes there is more heat provided by the sun, but there is also much less atmosphere between the surface of the earth and space.  This means that the thermal energy provided by the sun travels out to space much faster, causing a temperature drop.  In addition as previously mentioned, gasses at lower pressures tend to exist at lower temperatures as given by the ideal gas law.
50447
Hey Dude! Do you know how many different types of gases there are!!!! Do you! I can't even list all the types of gases here! Jeez!
1067317
Many things are in space...the are compounts of gases, metals, rock and ice...Elements you can find on earth too
166421
The temperature on earth is the result of the way the earth absobs energy from the light of the sun.  Scientists look at something called the albedo of the planet, which is a measure of how much light shines on the planet versus how much bounces back.  Most of the atmosphere is nitrogen and oxygen.  Carbon dioxide is different than these two gases, because it absorbs more light energy than they do.  The more energy it absorbs, the less is reflected, meaning that there is more energy--in the form of heat--being deposited on earth by the sun.  Since CO2 absorbs more energy, the more of it there is in the atmosphere means that the planet gets a lower albedo, meaning less light is reflected and more light is turned into heat.  The more heat we absorb, the hotter it gets--much like how a green house works, and hence the name.
387342
The earth's spheres 101:\n\nAtmosphere\nComposition: 78% Nitrogen; 21% Oxygen; the rest (1%) is Argon, Carbon Dioxide, and other gases.\nStructure: Has 4 layers divided by temperature changes...\ntroposphere-the layer we live in; most oxygen b/c of gravity; weather occurs here; temp decreases as you go up; atmospheric pressure decreases also\nstratosphere-contains atmospheric ozone layer; jets fly in this layer; temp increases due to ozone layer; pressure continues to decrease\nmesosphere-temp decreases again; meteorites burn up as enters our atmosphere here; temp decreases b/c moving away from ozone layer; pressure decreases\nthermosphere-literally means "heat sphere"; is the hottest of all the layers despite the fact it has the least amount of air b/c cosmic radiation is constantly bombarding air particles; satellites put into orbit here\n\nLithosphere:\nComposition of crust-made mostly of silicon, oxygen, & aluminum\nstructure-crust is divided into lithospheric plates that move due to convection of molten rock in the asthenosphere; there are over a dozen major plates; movement of plates cause earthquakes to occur as well as volcanic activity\n\nHydrosphere\nIncludes all the water in the earth's rivers, lakes, streams, air, oceans, groundwater, & living tissues; 98% of water is stored in the oceans; most of earth's freshwater is locked up in glaciers; groundwater is the most abundant source of usable freshwater\nmovement of water (water cycle)-water moves in a constant cycle called the water cycle; most of the water that constitutes precipitation comes from the oceans; water is evaporated from oceans, lakes, etc. then rises w/ warm air masses, cools, condenses, becomes clouds, precipitates, then either becomes groundwater, runoff, etc. then makes its way back into the oceans.
1074251
Simple answer: Carbon dioxide and other "greenhouse gases" get caught up in the upper levels of earth's atmosphere. When rays from the sun enter earth's atmosphere they pass through to the earth's surface and are supposed to reflect off the earth back into space but do not because the greenhouse gases trap them in the atmosphere.  This causes the earth to heat up due to the cosmic radiation in these rays.
1182098
Billions of years ago Jupiter and the Sun had a small gravitational war that the Sun easily won. The remaining heavier matter that was in the middle settled down and formed planetoids.The lighter gases that were outside Jupiters orbit form Gas Giants . Earth was one of these planetoids. It's why outside Jupiters' orbit it's all big gas planets and inside it's orbit you will find smaller rock based planets. \n\nMy own guess is that there we two stars in this system and one(jupiter) got too close to the other was partially destoyed sending it's gases very far away and letting out it's heavier elements closer to the impact point(Sun)
788371
Air has pressure, much like any gas.  By using this pressure it fills in cracks and crevices.