It surrounds us during our entire lives, and we breathe it in and out from our first to our last moment. Without it, there would be no life on our planet. We are talking about one of the four elements, air. The air combines gases that make up the earth’s atmosphere. Dry air is mainly composed of two gases: Nitrogen (N2) is the primary air component at 78.08 percent. At 20.92 percent, oxygen (O2) is the second most crucial component.
Furthermore, air contains noble gases (0.93 percent in total), mainly argon, as well as helium, neon, krypton and xenon. In addition, carbon dioxide (CO2) makes up 0.037 percent, and is one of the main air components due to its importance for living organisms and the climate. The air also includes methane, hydrogen, nitrous oxide (laughing gas) and carbon monoxide. In this article of Gazettely, we will tell you nine interesting things about the air that you probably don’t know.
There are some places where the temperature is high, but you can feel cold. One example? The thermosphere, the atmosphere layer between 90 and 500 km altitude, has temperatures up to 1,000 °C. Yet, astronauts, during their spacewalks, have to wear air-conditioned suits. In fact here the air is rarefied (there are few molecules), and the transfer of heat, in the absence of conduction, happens only by radiation.
