Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
The atmosphere has a mass of about 5.15 × 10 18 kg, [3] three quarters of which is within about 11 km (6.8 mi; 36,000 ft) of the surface. The atmosphere becomes thinner with increasing altitude, with no definite boundary between the atmosphere and outer space. The Kármán line, at 100 km (62 mi) or 1.57% of Earth's radius, is often used as ...
Nitrogen is a nonmetal and the lightest member of group 15 of the periodic table, often called the pnictogens. It is a common element in the universe, estimated at seventh in total abundance in the Milky Way and the Solar System. At standard temperature and pressure, two atoms of the element bond to form N 2, a colorless and odorless diatomic gas.
The Haber process, [1] also called the Haber–Bosch process, is the main industrial procedure for the production of ammonia. [2][3] It converts atmospheric nitrogen (N 2) to ammonia (NH 3) by a reaction with hydrogen (H 2) using a finely divided iron metal catalyst: This reaction is slightly favorable in terms of enthalpy, but is disfavored in ...
However, the bulk was likely nitrogen, N 2, and carbon dioxide, CO 2, which are also the predominant nitrogen-and-carbon-bearing gases produced by volcanism today. These are relatively inert gases. Oxygen, O 2, meanwhile, was present in the atmosphere at just 0.001% of its present atmospheric level.
Atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO 2) concentrations from 1958 to 2023. The Keeling Curve is a graph of the accumulation of carbon dioxide in the Earth's atmosphere based on continuous measurements taken at the Mauna Loa Observatory on the island of Hawaii from 1958 to the present day. The curve is named for the scientist Charles David Keeling, who ...
The atmosphere of Earth is composed of nitrogen (78%), oxygen (21%), argon (0.9%), carbon dioxide (0.04%) and trace gases. [2] Most organisms use oxygen for respiration ; lightning and bacteria perform nitrogen fixation which produces ammonia that is used to make nucleotides and amino acids ; plants , algae , and cyanobacteria use carbon ...
Approximately 78% of Earth's atmosphere is N gas (N 2), which is an inert compound and biologically unavailable to most organisms.In order to be utilized in most biological processes, N 2 must be converted to reactive nitrogen (Nr), which includes inorganic reduced forms (NH 3 and NH 4 +), inorganic oxidized forms (NO, NO 2, HNO 3, N 2 O, and NO 3 −), and organic compounds (urea, amines, and ...
Scientists also already knew that nitrogen formed the dominant portion of the atmosphere, but manmade chemistry had yet to establish a means to fix it. Then, in 1909, German chemist Fritz Haber successfully fixed atmospheric nitrogen in a laboratory. [5] [6] This success had extremely attractive military, industrial and agricultural applications.