• Question: what is air?

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      Asked by hotboxoutsidemanley101 to Matthew, Louise, Conor, Brian, Aoife on 15 Nov 2016.
      • Photo: Louise Mc Grath

        Louise Mc Grath answered on 15 Nov 2016:

        Hi hotboxoutsidemanley101,

        You can’t see it, you can’t smell it, and you can’t taste it, but it’s a gas that’s all around us and we couldn’t live without it. Air is a mixture of gases that make up the Earth’s atmosphere. it is made up of 78% nitrogen and 21% oxygen – with traces of water vapor, carbon dioxide, argon, and various other components.

      • Photo: Brian Caffrey

        Brian Caffrey answered on 15 Nov 2016:

        Air is made up of Nitrogen, oxygen, carbon dioxide, water vapor and other gases in small amounts.

      • Photo: Matthew Kitching

        Matthew Kitching answered on 15 Nov 2016:

        Hi Hotboxoutsidemanley101

        Louise and Conor have answered this pretty well already! Almost all air is Nitrogen (78%) and Oxygen (21%) and then some other gases (argon, Carbon dioxide, methane, and water).

        But it hasn’t always been this way – when the earth formed it was completely different – almost completely made of hydrogen. Then the earth got bashed with asteroids and volcanoes and it became much more rich in Nitrogen and Carbon dioxide.

        Then bacteria and plants worked out how to use Carbon Dioxide and sunlight for energy – and they started producing large amounts of Oxygen – until we get up to the levels we have to date (there was a big bump of oxygen at one point) – you can read more about it here:
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmosphere_of_Earth

        I guess what I’m trying to say is the atmosphere of earth is really tightly linked to the organisms that live on it – we wouldn’t have been able to live on the early earth without oxygen [thanks bacteria for sorting it out 🙂 ] but now we’re significantly changing our atmosphere (through global warming) – something we should be really carefully about!

        not really an answer to your question – but hopefully you found it interesting! Let me know if you want to know more!

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