|
COPYRIGHT 2003 Natural History Magazine, Inc.
by Nick Lane Oxford University Press, 2003; $35.00
Our Earth is an odd place. No other planet in the solar system has so much oxygen in its atmosphere. Although oxygen is a relatively common element in the universe, its atoms are so reactive that they never float around by themselves. Pump an atmosphere full of monatomic oxygen, chemists will tell you, and every unattached oxygen atom will immediately rush off to find a mate, combining with iron to form rust, with carbon to form carbon dioxide, with hydrogen to form water. Even the diatomic molecule ([O.sub.2]) that occurs in the air we breathe is reactive enough to form ferric and carbonate compounds. Those compounds should be abundant on a planet, but pure oxygen,...
Read the full article for free courtesy of your local library.
|
Bookmark this article
Print this article
Link to this article
Email this article
Digg It!
Add to del.icio.us
RSS
