vania-janet/multiturn-rag-retrieval-data huggingface dataset:
Mesosphere | NASA Space Place – NASA Science for Kids


Mesosphere | NASA Space Place – NASA Science for Kids

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Mesosphere

The Short Answer:
What is the mesosphere?

	The mesosphere is a layer of Earth’s atmosphere. The mesosphere is located above the stratosphere and below the thermosphere.
	

The middle layer
The mesosphere lies between the thermosphere and the stratosphere. “Meso” means middle, and this is the highest layer of the atmosphere in which the gases are all mixed up rather than being layered by their mass. 

The mesosphere is 22 miles (35 kilometers) thick. The air is still thin, so you wouldn’t be able to breathe up in the mesosphere. But there is more gas in this layer than there is out in the thermosphere.

Have you ever seen a meteor shower, where meteors burn up and streak across the sky? Some people call them shooting stars. Those meteors are burning up in the mesosphere. The meteors make it through the exosphere and thermosphere without much trouble because those layers don’t have much air. But when they hit the mesosphere, there are enough gases to cause friction and create heat. 

Visit other layers in Earth's atmosphere.
Where would you like to go?

Go in to the stratosphere.
Go out to the thermosphere.

Visit the ionosphere.

        	article last updated June 28, 2019
        

Exosphere(This is only part of the exosphere. It's actually 12 times bigger than this!)

Thermosphere

Mesosphere

Stratosphere

Troposphere

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Exosphere(This is only part of the exosphere. It's actually 12 times bigger than this!)

Thermosphere

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Clouds & Radiation Fact Sheet
longwave radiation emitted by the Earth's surface, the cloud reemits a portion
of the energy to outer space and a portion back toward the surface. The
intensity of the emission from a cloud varies directly as its temperature
and also depends upon several other factors, such as the cloud's thickness
and the makeup of the particles that form the cloud. The top of the cloud
is usually colder than the Earth's surface. Hence, if a cloud is introduced
into a previously clear sky, the cold cloud top will reduce the longwave
emission to space, and (disregarding the cloud albedo forcing for the moment)
energy will be trapped beneath the cloud top. This trapped energy will increase
the temperature of the Earth's surface and atmosphere until the longwave
emission to space once again balances the incoming absorbed shortwave radiation.
This process is called "cloud greenhouse forcing" and, taken by
itself, tends to cause a heating or "positive forcing" of the
Earth's climate. Usually, the higher a cloud is in the atmosphere, the colder
is its upper surface and the greater is its cloud greenhouse forcing.
If the Earth had no atmosphere, a surface temperature far below freezing
would produce enough emitted radiation to balance the absorbed solar energy.
But the atmosphere warms the planet and makes Earth more livable. Clear
air is largely transparent to incoming shortwave solar radiation and, hence,
transmits it to the Earth's surface. However, a significant fraction of
the longwave radiation emitted by the surface is absorbed by trace gases
in the air. This heats the air and causes it to radiate energy both out
to space and back toward the Earth's surface. The energy emitted back to
the surface causes it to heat up more, which then results in greater emission
from the surface. This heating effect of air on the surface, called the
atmospheric greenhouse effect, is due mainly to water vapor in the air,
but also is enhanced by carbon dioxide, methane, and other infrared-absorbing
trace gases.
In addition to the warming effect of clear air, clouds in the atmosphere
Stephanie D. Wilson - NASA
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What's in the Atmosphere? | NASA Climate Kids
ER-2 airplanes are the highest flying airplanes in the world. NASA uses these airplanes to study the health of the stratosphere and the ozone layer and the impacts of climate change.

Stratosphere
The stratosphere is a very dry layer of the atmosphere. There is very little water vapor, so very few clouds form there.

Tropopause
The tropopause is the boundary between the troposphere and the stratosphere. 

Cirrus clouds

Lightning

Commercial Airplanes (long-distance flights)

Jet Stream
Jet streams are bands of strong wind that generally blow from west to east all across the globe. Airplanes flying in the same direction as the jet stream can get a speed boost from these strong winds.

Cirrocumulus clouds

Highest flying bumblebees
Alpine bumblebees (maximum altitude)

Mt. Everest

Atmospheric Rivers
Atmospheric rivers are long, narrow regions in the atmosphere that move water vapor away from tropical regions—like a river in the sky. When atmospheric rivers hit land, they often result in days of rain or snow.

Cirrostratus clouds

Altocumulus clouds

Altostratus clouds

Highest flying butterflies and flies

Highest flying bird
Ruppel's vulture

Troposphere
The troposphere is the lowest layer of Earth's atmosphere. It's the level of the atmosphere where we live and breathe. It's also the layer where almost all of our weather happens.

Cruising altitude of blimps

Stratocumulus clouds

Stratus clouds

One World Trade Center
Tallest building in North America

    Scroll up to see what's in each level of Earth's atmosphere!    

 
above sea level
Resultados científicos revolucionarios en la estación espacial de 2023 - NASA
Estos fenómenos ocurren muy por encima de las altitudes normales de los relámpagos y las nubes de tormenta. Utilizando los datos de ASIM, los investigadores realizaron las primeras observaciones detalladas del desarrollo de un líder negativo, o el inicio de un destello, a partir de un relámpago en una nube. Comprender de qué modo las tormentas eléctricas perturban la atmósfera a gran altitud podría mejorar los modelos atmosféricos y las predicciones climáticas y meteorológicas.
Regeneración de tejidos en el espacio
La investigación Regeneración de tejidos – Defectos óseos (Investigación en Roedores 4, Centro para el Avance de la Ciencia en el Espacio, o CASIS), patrocinada por el Laboratorio Nacional de la EEI, examinó los mecanismos de cicatrización de las heridas en microgravedad. Los investigadores descubrieron que la microgravedad afectaba a los componentes fibrosos y celulares del tejido cutáneo. Las estructuras fibrosas en el tejido conectivo proporcionan estructura y protección a los órganos del cuerpo. Este hallazgo es un paso inicial en la utilización de la regeneración del tejido conectivo para el tratamiento de enfermedades y lesiones en los futuros exploradores espaciales.
Músculos poderosos en microgravedad

Instalación de la Unidad de Hábitat de Ratones en el Centro Experimental de Biología Celular de la estación.
NASA/JAXA
Virtual Vocabulary | NASA eClips
topbirefringence - Birefringence is a process where light of different polarizations travels at different speeds in different directions through a transparent medium. Birefringence is also called double refraction. topblack hole - A black hole is a region of space with gravitational force so strong that nothing can escape from it. topblood vessels - Blood vessels are tubes that carry blood. They include arteries, veins, and the capillaries that connect them. topbreathing apparatus - A breathing apparatus is a device worn by firefighters and rescue workers to provide breathable air. topbulb - A bulb is any plant that stores its complete life cycle in an underground storage structure. topbunker gear - Bunker gear refers to the personal protective equipment used by firefighters. The term originated because the gear was stored next to a person's bunk. topbuoyancy - Buoyancy is an upward force on an object in a fluid, e.g., when you float in a pool or the ocean or a balloon floats in air. topccamber - Camber is the difference between the top and bottom curves of an airfoil. Airplane wings tend to have a longer curve on the upper than the lower wing surfaces (although the opposite is true of supersonic jets). topcapillaries - Capillaries are the thinnest blood vessels. Nutrients and gases can pass through capillary walls. Capillaries connect veins and arteries. topcarbon - Carbon is a chemical element that is necessary for life. Carbon is found in Earth's atmosphere, soils, and oceans. Carbon is also found in abundance in the sun, stars, comets and atmospheres of most other planets. Nearly every biological compound that makes up living things is composed of carbon. topcarbon cycle - The carbon cycle is the flow of carbon between carbon reservoirs such as rocks, oceans, plants, soil, fossil fuels, and the atmosphere. The carbon cycle is composed of fast and slow carbon components. The fast carbon cycle is largely the movement of carbon through life forms on Earth or the biosphere. The slow carbon cycle is the movement of carbon between rocks, soil, ocean, and atmosphere.
Strange New Worlds - NASA Science
It used to be Jupiter-sized until it spent some time inside its now-dead star…a trip that destroys most planets, but left this one a Freddy Krueger-like burned world smaller than Earth. At about 12,000 degrees F (6,800 C), it is one of the hottest planets discovered. In fact, the planet itself is evaporating, soon to be another victim.Read MoreHD 17156 b - AKA MulchatnaDiscovered 2007: A giant planet composed mostly of gas. Also given the name Mulchatna, for a river in Alaska that supports indigenous and native populations.Read MoreGJ 1132 b - On its second atmosphereDiscovered 2015: GJ 1132 b may have begun as a mini-Neptune, but is now a rocky world a little bigger than Earth. The planet may have lost one atmosphere but gained another from volcanic activity.Read MoreTIC 172900988 b - Rare double transit discoveryDiscovered 2021: This planet about as big around as Jupiter belongs to a system that’s a stunner. The planet orbits two stars and, viewed from Earth, crosses the faces of both. That means this system puts on quite a show!Read MoreWASP-96 b - Hot and puffy with a signature of waterDiscovered 2014: An international team found that WASP-96 b is a world with a sodium rich atmosphere. The planet, located nearly 1,150 light-years from Earth, orbits its star every 3.4 days. It has about half the mass of Jupiter, and its discovery was announced in 2014.Read MoreTOI-3757 b - Marshmallow planetDiscovered 2022: A gas giant exoplanet with the density of a marshmallow has been detected in orbit around a cool red dwarf. TOI-3757 b, is the lowest-density planet ever detected around a red dwarf star (2022).Read MoreTrES-2 b - Eternal NightAre you afraid of the dark? Welcome to TrEs-2b, the planet of eternal night. The darkest planet ever discovered orbiting a star, this alien world is less reflective than coal. Inside its atmosphere, you’d be flying blind in the dark.
Collection - Food and Agriculture
Faint Glow, Clear Signal from Plants
As scientists detect plant fluorescence in better detail, they inch closer to helping farmers respond to extreme weather and close in on understanding how carbon cycles through ecosystems.
Published Jul 10, 2020
 

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Stars - NASA Science
However, the details of the late stages of the star’s death depend strongly on its mass.A low-mass star’s atmosphere will keep expanding until it becomes a subgiant or giant star while fusion converts helium into carbon in the core. (This will be the fate of our Sun, in several billion years.) Some giants become unstable and pulsate, periodically inflating and ejecting some of their atmospheres. Eventually, all the star’s outer layers blow away, creating an expanding cloud of dust and gas called a planetary nebula.The Helix nebula, imaged here, lies 650 light-years away in the constellation Aquarius. Also known as NGC 7293, it is a typical example of planetary nebulae.NASA/JPL-CaltechAll that’s left of the star is its core, now called a white dwarf, a roughly Earth-sized stellar cinder that gradually cools over billions of years.A high-mass star goes further. Fusion converts carbon into heavier elements like oxygen, neon, and magnesium, which will become future fuel for the core. For the largest stars, this chain continues until silicon fuses into iron. These processes produce energy that keeps the core from collapsing, but each new fuel buys it less and less time. The whole process takes just a few million years. By the time silicon fuses into iron, the star runs out of fuel in a matter of days. The next step would be fusing iron into some heavier element but doing so requires energy instead of releasing it.The remnant of a supernova observed in 1572, notably studied by the Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe, lies about 13,000 light-years away in the constellation Cassiopeia. In this composite image, data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory have been combined with an optical image of stars in the same area.X-ray: NASA/CXC/RIKEN & GSFC/T. Sato et al; Optical: DSSThe star’s iron core collapses until forces between the nuclei push the brakes, then it rebounds. This change creates a shock wave that travels outward through the star. The result is a huge explosion called a supernova.
Overview - NASA Science
They likely have a mixture of interior compositions, but all will have hydrogen and helium-dominated outer atmospheres and rocky cores. We’re also discovering mini-Neptunes, planets smaller than Neptune and bigger than Earth. No planets of this size or type exist in our solar system.Super-Earths are typically terrestrial planets that may or may not have atmospheres. They are more massive than Earth, but lighter than Neptune.Terrestrial planets are Earth sized and smaller, composed of rock, silicate, water or carbon. Further investigation will determine whether some of them possess atmospheres, oceans or other signs of habitability.Explore the planet types: Gas Giant, Neptune-like, Super-Earth and TerrestrialOr move on to the building blocks of galaxies: stars!Keep ExploringDiscover More Topics From NASASearch for LifeStarsUniverseBlack HolesReturn to topThe National Aeronautics and Space AdministrationNASA explores the unknown in air and space, innovates for the benefit of humanity, and inspires the world through discovery.About NASA's MissionJoin UsHomeNews & EventsMultimediaNASA+MissionsHumans in SpaceEarth & ClimateThe Solar SystemThe UniverseScienceAeronauticsTechnologyLearning ResourcesAbout NASANASA en EspañolFollow NASAMore NASA Social AccountsNASA NewslettersSitemapFor MediaPrivacy PolicyFOIANo FEAR ActOffice of the IGBudget & Annual ReportsAgency Financial ReportsContact NASAAccessibilityPage Last Updated:last monthPage Editor:SMD Content EditorsResponsible NASA Official for Science:Dana Bolles
Facts About Earth - NASA Science
For example, the North American plate moves west over the Pacific Ocean basin, roughly at a rate equal to the growth of our fingernails. Earthquakes result when plates grind past one another, ride up over one another, collide to make mountains, or split and separate.Earth's global ocean, which covers nearly 70% of the planet's surface, has an average depth of about 2.5 miles (4 kilometers) and contains 97% of Earth's water. Almost all of Earth's volcanoes are hidden under these oceans. Hawaii's Mauna Kea volcano is taller from base to summit than Mount Everest, but most of it is underwater. Earth's longest mountain range is also underwater, at the bottom of the Arctic and Atlantic oceans. It is four times longer than the Andes, Rockies and Himalayas combined.AtmosphereNear the surface, Earth has an atmosphere that consists of 78% nitrogen, 21% oxygen, and 1% other gases such as argon, carbon dioxide, and neon. The atmosphere affects Earth's long-term climate and short-term local weather and shields us from much of the harmful radiation coming from the Sun. It also protects us from meteoroids, most of which burn up in the atmosphere, seen as meteors in the night sky, before they can strike the surface as meteorites.MagnetosphereOur planet's rapid rotation and molten nickel-iron core give rise to a magnetic field, which the solar wind distorts into a teardrop shape in space. (The solar wind is a stream of charged particles continuously ejected from the Sun.) When charged particles from the solar wind become trapped in Earth's magnetic field, they collide with air molecules above our planet's magnetic poles. These air molecules then begin to glow and cause aurorae, or the northern and southern lights.The magnetic field is what causes compass needles to point to the North Pole regardless of which way you turn. But the magnetic polarity of Earth can change, flipping the direction of the magnetic field. The geologic record tells scientists that a magnetic reversal takes place about every 400,000 years on average, but the timing is very irregular. As far as we know, such a magnetic reversal doesn't cause any harm to life on Earth, and a reversal is very unlikely to happen for at least another thousand years.
Beaver - NYSDEC
They can be found in wooded streams; the margins of lakes, ponds, and reservoirs; swamps and marshes; and many other sources of year-round water. Ideally, waterways will be of low gradient with an abundance of aspen, willow, or alder, as well as a variety of aquatic vegetation.Food and FeedingThe beaver's diet consists almost entirely of cellulose in the form of woody plant material. Woody plants are nearly indigestible to mammals. Digestion is aided by microorganisms inhabiting the small intestine. Beavers eat the leaves, bark and twigs of trees such as aspen, willow, and red maple and a variety of herbaceous plants. During summer months, their dietary preferences may shift to aquatic vegetation including water lilies and rhizomes from shoreline ferns.As winter draws near, beaver may collect and store food items, called a raft'or feedpile, underwater near the entrance to their lodge to use throughout the winter. This food store is imperative for survival when thick ice prevents access to fresh food during New York's long winters.BehaviorReproduction in beaver leads to the formation of their basic social unit, the family or colony. Beaver mate for life, but if one member of a pair dies, the remaining member will readily accept a new mate. These colonies usually consist of the parents, the present year's offspring, and often times there will be a representative from the previous year's litter. Infrequently an 'extra' adult will be found within a colony. As a colony grows, members may undoubtedly expand their breeding and foraging territories, building dams and lodges to support shelter requirements and expand home ranges. A typical number of beaver per colony is between four and six, but up to a dozen is possible.Home ranges or colonial territories are established and passively defended by means of scent-mounding. This is where an adult beaver piles up muddy debris and marks the top with castoreum, which is washed out of the castor glands with urine. Active defense includes potentially violent encounters. Many beaver have been shown to bear the scars of territorial disputes. Such encounters seldom end in death.Other forms of communication include vocalizations, postures, and tail-slapping.
NASA’s TESS Finds Intriguing World Sized Between Earth, Venus - NASA Science
“Gliese 12 b represents one of the best targets to study whether Earth-size planets orbiting cool stars can retain their atmospheres, a crucial step to advance our understanding of habitability on planets across our galaxy,” said Shishir Dholakia, a doctoral student at the Centre for Astrophysics at the University of Southern Queensland in Australia. He co-led a different research team with Larissa Palethorpe, a doctoral student at the University of Edinburgh and University College London.Both teams suggest that studying Gliese 12 b may help unlock some aspects of our own solar system’s evolution.“It is thought that Earth’s and Venus’s first atmospheres were stripped away and then replenished by volcanic outgassing and bombardments from residual material in the solar system,” Palethorpe explained. “The Earth is habitable, but Venus is not due to its complete loss of water. Because Gliese 12 b is between Earth and Venus in temperature, its atmosphere could teach us a lot about the habitability pathways planets take as they develop.”One important factor in retaining an atmosphere is the storminess of its star. Red dwarfs tend to be magnetically active, resulting in frequent, powerful X-ray flares. However, analyses by both teams conclude that Gliese 12 shows no signs of extreme behavior.A paper led by Kuzuhara and Fukui was published May 23 in The Astrophysical Journal Letters. The Dholakia and Palethorpe findings were published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society on the same day.During a transit, the host star’s light passes through any atmosphere. Different gas molecules absorb different colors, so the transit provides a set of chemical fingerprints that can be detected by telescopes like Webb. “We know of only a handful of temperate planets similar to Earth that are both close enough to us and meet other criteria needed for this kind of study, called transmission spectroscopy, using current facilities,” said Michael McElwain, a research astrophysicist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, and a co-author of the Kuzuhara and Fukui paper. “To better understand the diversity of atmospheres and evolutionary outcomes for these planets, we need more examples like Gliese 12 b.”