• Question: when we go further up to the universe why does it get colder ?

    Asked by slenderman to Ed, Hayley, Jason, Nathan, Sophie on 20 Mar 2013.
    • Photo: Sophie Holles

      Sophie Holles answered on 20 Mar 2013:

      Air expands as it rises, the higher you go the less pressure there is so the air molecules all move further apart which makes the air cooler.

    • Photo: Hayley Evers-King

      Hayley Evers-King answered on 21 Mar 2013:

      Actually, the atmosphere has multiple layers and the temperature doesn’t decrease through all of them. In the bottom layer, like Sophie says, the air gets cooler as you rise (this is the troposphere). In the stratosphere the temperature gets warmer because of the presence of ozone which traps UV radiation from the sun. The temperature cools in the next layer (the mesosphere) and warms again in the top layer – the thermosphere, again because of gases like ozone.

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