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How Thick is the Atmosphere?

We've all seen pictures of the Earth and its atmosphere as a series of concentric circles, showing the troposphere, stratosphere, ionosphere, etc., often looking like a bullseye target with the solid Earth in the middle. But if we were to draw that picture to scale, what would it really look like?

Author(s): Martin J. Ruzek Date Accepted: 1997-03-17 Grade Group: Middle School (6-8) Benchmarks: S1.2.4 S1.3.2 Keywords: scale atmosphere Microsoft Word: 01_06_97_1.docx PDF Document: 01_06_97_1.pdf