Thermosphere gas and the ionospheric plasma. The International Space Station orbits the Earth within the middle of the thermosphere, between . It is convenient to separate the atmospheric regions according to the two temperature minima at about 12 km altitude (the tropopause) and at about 85 km (the mesopause) (Figure 1). The thermosphere (or the upper atmosphere) is the height region above 85 km, while the region between the tropopause and the mesopause is the middle atmosphere (stratosphere and mesosphere) where absorption of solar UV radiation generates the temperature maximum near 45 km altitude and causes the ozone layer. The density
Atmosphere of Jupiter or sulfur). Various tropospheric (at 200–500 mbar) and stratospheric (at 10–100 mbar) haze layers reside above the main cloud layers. The latter are made from condensed heavy polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons or hydrazine, which are generated in the upper stratosphere (1–100 μbar) from methane under the influence of the solar ultraviolet radiation (UV). The methane abundance relative to molecular hydrogen in the stratosphere is about 10, while the abundance ratio of other light hydrocarbons, like ethane and acetylene, to molecular hydrogen is about 10. Jupiter's thermosphere is located at pressures lower than 1 μbar and demonstrates such phenomena as airglow, polar