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Asked by edwardcullen to Cesar, Emily, Jamie, Kate, Philippa on 17 Jun 2011.
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Kate Clancy answered on 14 Jun 2011:
Hmm, I am going to guess a physical scientist will be better to answer this than a social/life scientist like myself. But I’m going to throw out the idea that air came before sky. Because to me, sky is something you observe, and there had to be air before there was anyone to observe the sky!
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Jamie Gallagher answered on 14 Jun 2011:
I’d say the air came first. You can have air molecules floating around byt they don’t really make a sky until there is enough of them to swamp a planet to form a layer. So the air built up and formed a sky!
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Philippa Demonte answered on 14 Jun 2011:
@edwardcullen I don’t know enough about environmental science to answer this scientifically, but I would say that air came first, since you have to have air / an atmosphere in order to have a sky.
The composition of the air on Earth wasn’t always the same as it is now though. From animal and plant fossil evidence we know that there was a period millions of years ago when the air contained a higher percentage of oxygen. During that period insects were massive and I would imagine that forest fires were probably more common since oxygen makes things combustible. There were also periods, particularly after super volcanic eruptions, when the air contained a higher percentage of carbon dioxide.
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Emily Robinson answered on 17 Jun 2011:
Yeah I agree with everyone that air came first… the sky is a funny thing though as it is alot about percetion of what you can see rather than what is in it. Do you understand what I mean?
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