A Beautiful Planet calls Earth's atmosphere "a delicate cocoon of air that shields us from our star's radiation." Of course, the atmosphere doesn't completely block electromagnetic radiation from the Sun; without some sunlight reaching the surface, plants could not harvest the Sun's energy, and practically no life as we know it could exist. The atmosphere's ozone layer does filter out much of the harmful ultraviolet light (or "UV rays") produced by the Sun. UV rays can cause skin cancer, and catastrophic damage to the ozone layer may have contributed to Earth's most extensive mass extinction of species ever, the End-Permian extinction (also known
Extreme ultraviolet Extreme ultraviolet Extreme ultraviolet radiation (EUV or XUV) or high-energy ultraviolet radiation is electromagnetic radiation in the part of the electromagnetic spectrum spanning wavelengths from 124 nm down to 10 nm, and therefore (by the Planck–Einstein equation) having photons with energies from 10 eV up to 124 eV (corresponding to 124 nm to 10 nm respectively). EUV is naturally generated by the solar corona and artificially by plasma and synchrotron light sources. Since UVC extends to 100 nm, there is some overlap in the terms. Its main uses are photoelectron spectroscopy, solar imaging, and lithography. In air, EUV is the