Interesting Facts about Oxygen
15. Oxygen is an element with the chemical symbol O and atomic number 8.
14. Dry air is 21 percent oxygen, 78 percent nitrogen and 1 percent other gases.
13. Animals and plants require oxygen for respiration.
12. Although Joseph Priestley and Carl Wilhelm Scheele both discovered oxygen about the same time, Priestly generally gets the credit.
11. One fifth of the Earth's atmosphere is made up of oxygen and is the third most abundant element in the universe by mass.
10. The majority of the oxygen used in industry is used in the manufacturing of steel. Other applications include making new compounds such as plastics and creating a very hot flame for welding. Liquid oxygen is combined with liquid hydrogen to make rocket fuel.
9. The name for the element oxygen comes from Greek words that mean ‘acid former’.
8. Oxygen is a part of a class of highly electronegative elements known as chalcogens. Chalcogens form the 16th group of the periodic table, and also include sulfur, selenium, tellurium and polonium. As the first chalcogen, oxygen is one of the most electronegative elements in the world, bested only by fluorine.
7. Oxygen is a very reactive element that easily forms compounds such as oxides.
6. Oxygen does not burn – honestly! It does, however, support the combustion of other substances. Think about it — if oxygen itself actually burnt, simply striking a match would be enough to burn all of the oxygen in our planet’s atmosphere.
5. Oxygen gas is colorless, odorless, and tasteless.
4. Oxygen is the third most abundant element found in the sun, and has a key role the carbon-nitrogen cycle, the process once thought to give the sun and stars their energy.
3. The high concentration of oxygen in the atmosphere is a result of Earth's oxygen cycle, which is predominantly driven by photosynthesis of plants.
2. Oxygen is an essential factor for burning up the body’s toxins.
1. Oxygen is essential to human life, it is found in the air we breathe and the water we drink (H20).
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