A few hours ago I was out in our darkened street looking at a faint greenish curtain to the north. The G4 geomagnetic storm was interacting with our upper atmosphere layer, the incoming solar wind setting off electrical effects miles above our heads. Different people no doubt had differing reactions to the display. To me, aesthetic appreciation was largely absent- the color display was a strong personal reminder of just how much our atmosphere protects us from not only incoming meteors but also incoming radiation from the coronal mass ejections and flares from our sun. The event going on right now is so strong that astronauts up in the International Space Station may have to move to more shielded parts of the structure to ride out the storm. We down here have the luxury of ignoring the event altogether.
When I look up at all that ionization going on up in the upper atmosphere I am profoundly grateful for our planet's thin atmospheric skin protecting the incredibly fragile life forms on the surface. It even protects all our oceans- without it they could literally evaporate into space. It is an elegantly simple shield and has protected life on this planet for a long long time. But now we are monkeying with it, especially with the surface release of methane gases, which effect the OH hydroxyl cycle which in turn acts as our primary atmospheric pollution cleanser. We are fouling our nest- the oceans and perhaps even more importantly the atmosphere. It was that worry that informed my own reaction to the colorful night sky..
So gratitude, great gratitude to our atmosphere, standing its lonely vigil miles above our uncaring heads- our guardian and protector. Without it we all die almost immediately, our oceans dry up and Earth becomes a second Mars?
https://science.nasa.gov/earth/earth-atmosphere/the-atmosphere-earths-security-blanket/
Thanks, Michael for this ode to our atmosphere, that invisible, taken for granted, now much violated space that surrounds and succors us.
We really have the perfect conditions for life here. Its mind boggling how it all works. WE are just the right distance from the sun, we have just the right tilt, and chemistry for the atmosphere to work, and humans have not mucked it up until recent...................