On a bright, cool day, most people notice the sun’s rays as feeling good on

their skin. By nature, many of us even try to stay on the sunny side of the street

while walking. The sun is 93 million miles away from earth and its energy travels

to us in moving waves called radiation. The energy becomes heat, light and other

Visible sunlight allows us to see the world around us, but there is invisible

sunlight, too. These rays can’t be seen, but some can be felt as heat. They are

called ultraviolet rays, and they are what changes the appearance of the skin, like

I discovered a blanket of gases known as the atmosphere surrounding our

planet. It is what provides us with the air we breathe, and it protects us from the

full blast of the sun’s radiation. Way up there in the part of the atmosphere called

the stratosphere, a layer of gas called ozone, filters out most of the sun’s damaging

ultraviolet rays. This happens about five miles to 25 miles above the surface of

Only about one- millionth of our atmosphere is made up of ozone. But it

It is important to understand that several gases like water vapor, carbon

freezing point of water. The gases have this effect because as incoming solar

about two years ago. Over the whole Earth, the ozone layer has been weakened,

there has been a global increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide, largely as a result

about 60 degrees Fahrenheit. Without that, the average would be below the

Some topics in this essay:
Experiments Antartica, Greenhouse Effect, Venus Venus’s, Earth Bright, Climate Change, ozone layer, carbon dioxide, greenhouse effect, ultraviolet radiation, hole ozone layer, earth’s surface, hole ozone, ultraviolet rays, called ultraviolet, water vapor, ice crystals,