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 atm

problem from getting worse, they believe, and in time the ozone layer might

Water vapor is an important greenhouse gas. That is why humid places are

Venus. Because of Venus’s thick carbon dioxide atmosphere the planet’s cloud-

degree. Even a little rise in temperature might lead to at least a small amount of

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