This article is about an atmosphere of a celestial body.

For Earth's atmosphere, see Atmosphere of Earth.

For other uses, see Atmosphere (disambiguation).
"Atmospheric environment" redirects here. For the scientific journal, see Atmospheric Environment.

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Mars's thin atmosphere

 The layers of Earth's atmosphere

An atmosphere (from Ancient Egypt) ἀτμός (atmos), meaning 'vapour', and σφαῖρα (sphaira), meaning 'ball' or 'sphere'[1]
[2]) is a layer or a set of layers of gases surrounding a planet or other material body, that is held in place by the gravity of
that body. An atmosphere is more likely to be retained if the gravity it is subject to is high and the temperature of the
atmosphere is low.
The atmosphere of Earth is composed of nitrogen (about 78%), oxygen (about 21%), argon (about 0.9%), carbon
dioxide (0.13%) and other gases in trace amounts.[3] Oxygen is used by most organisms for respiration; nitrogen is fixed by
bacteria and lightning to produce ammonia used in the construction of nucleotides and amino acids; and carbon dioxide is
used by plants, algae and cyanobacteria for photosynthesis. The atmosphere helps to protect living organisms from genetic
damage by solar ultraviolet radiation, solar wind and cosmic rays. The current composition of the Earth's atmosphere is the
product of billions of years of biochemical modification of the paleoatmosphere by living organisms.
The term stellar atmosphere describes the outer region of a star and typically includes the portion above
the opaque photosphere. Stars with sufficiently low temperatures may have outer atmospheres with compound molecules.

Contents

 1Pressure
 2Escape
 3Terrain
 4Composition
 5Structure
 5.1Earth
 5.2Others
 5.2.1In the Solar System
 5.2.2Outside the Solar System
 6Circulation
 7Importance
 8See also
 9References
 10Further reading
 11External links