Weight of the atmosphere is......

The earth is surrounded by a thick blanket of air. This is its atmosphere. The earth’s atmosphere is made up of about 20 different gases. The two main ones are oxygen and nitrogen. It also contains water and dust particles. Air is matter, and like all matter it has weight. Weight is the measure of the pull of gravity on matter. If a scale registers ten pounds when a stone is placed on it, this means that the gravity is pulling the stone with a force of ten pounds. Similarly, earth’s gravity pulls on each particle of gas and dust in the atmosphere. Because our atmosphere is a vast ocean of air, it has considerable weight. If it could somehow be compressed and put on a set of scales, it would weight about 5,700,000,000,000,000(5,700 quadrillion) tons! The earth’s atmosphere is one of the things that make it a planet of life.