Ozone Layer Danger
Δημοσιεύτηκε στις 1 Ιουν 2013
Think
of the ozone layer as Earth's sunglasses, protecting life on the
surface from the harmful glare of the sun's strongest ultraviolet rays,
which can cause skin cancer and other maladies.
Ozone stinks. People who breathe it gag as their lungs burn. The EPA classifies ground-level ozone as air pollution.
Yet without it, life on Earth would be impossible.
A
fragile layer of ozone 25 km above Earth's surface is all that stands
between us and some of the harshest UV rays from the sun. The ozone
molecule O3 blocks radiation which would otherwise burn skin and cause
cancer. On Mars, which has no ozone layer to protect it, solar UV rays
strafe the surface with deadly effect, leaving the apparently lifeless
planet without the simplest of organic molecules in the upper
millimeters of exposed Martian soil.
To keep track of our planet's
ozone layer, NASA is about to launch the most sophisticated space-based
ozone sensor ever: SAGE III, slated for installation on the
International Space Station in 2014.
People were
understandably alarmed, then, in the 1980s when scientists noticed that
manmade chemicals in the atmosphere were destroying this layer.
Governments quickly enacted an international treaty, called the Montreal
Protocol, to ban ozone-destroying gases such as CFCs then found in
aerosol cans and air conditioners.
of the ozone layer as Earth's sunglasses, protecting life on the
surface from the harmful glare of the sun's strongest ultraviolet rays,
which can cause skin cancer and other maladies.
Ozone stinks. People who breathe it gag as their lungs burn. The EPA classifies ground-level ozone as air pollution.
Yet without it, life on Earth would be impossible.
A
fragile layer of ozone 25 km above Earth's surface is all that stands
between us and some of the harshest UV rays from the sun. The ozone
molecule O3 blocks radiation which would otherwise burn skin and cause
cancer. On Mars, which has no ozone layer to protect it, solar UV rays
strafe the surface with deadly effect, leaving the apparently lifeless
planet without the simplest of organic molecules in the upper
millimeters of exposed Martian soil.
To keep track of our planet's
ozone layer, NASA is about to launch the most sophisticated space-based
ozone sensor ever: SAGE III, slated for installation on the
International Space Station in 2014.
People were
understandably alarmed, then, in the 1980s when scientists noticed that
manmade chemicals in the atmosphere were destroying this layer.
Governments quickly enacted an international treaty, called the Montreal
Protocol, to ban ozone-destroying gases such as CFCs then found in
aerosol cans and air conditioners.
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