What is the mass of the Earth's atmosphere?

[wrongusername]

Homework Statement

What is the total mass of the Earth's atmosphere? The radius of the Earth is 6.4 x 10^6 m, and 1 ATM = 10^5 N/m^2

Homework Equations

[tex]F=PA=ma[/tex]

The Attempt at a Solution

[tex]F_{g}=P_{atm}A_{earth}=m_{atm}g[/tex]

[tex]m_{atm}=\frac{P_{atm}A_{earth}}{g}=\frac{P_{atm}\pi r^{2}}{g}=\frac{\left(1\times10^{5}Pa\right)\pi\left(6.4\times10^{6}m\right)^{2}}{9.80\frac{m}{s^{2}}}=1\times10^{18}kg[/tex]

I think I'm supposed to account for decreasing gravitational acceleration, but how would I do that? I don't know about the height of the atmosphere. The only thing that saved me from getting this problem wrong was my remembering that the mass of the atmosphere was 5x10^18 kg or something

 

[D H]

Almost right. What is the surface area of a sphere?

 

[wrongusername]

Almost right. What is the surface area of a sphere?

Oh! So I forgot the 4 in front of the pi r². Thank you!