Oxygen is an element you can't live without, although too much could make you sick or dead. Oxygen is in the air you breathe, the water you drink, most rocks and thousands of compounds. The element is inside of you and all around you. How much do you know about it?
Here are 10 interesting facts about the element oxygen.
- Animals and plants require oxygen for respiration.
- Oxygen gas is colorless, odorless, and tasteless.
- Liquid and solid oxygen are pale blue.
- Oxygen is a non-metal.
- Oxygen gas normally is the divalent molecule O2. Ozone, O3, is another form of pure oxygen.
- Oxygen supports combustion.
- Oxygen is paramagnetic.
- Approximately 2/3 of the mass of the human body is oxygen.
- Excited oxygen is responsible for the bright red and yellow-green colors of the aurora.
- Oxygen was the atomic weight standard for the other elements until 1961 when it was replaced by carbon 12.
