What gases in Earth's atmosphere would you expect to find as molecules and which as individual atoms?
1 Answer
The only somewhat significant gases that occur as pure elements will be
All other gases that contribute a significant amount to the atmosphere's composition will be molecules.
Explanation:
Well, recall that there are seven elements that occur naturally diatomic, which means they occur in nature as two-atom molecules. These seven are
-
"H"_2 -
"N"_2 -
"O"_2 -
"F"_2 -
"Cl"_2 -
"Br"_2 -
"I"_2
Of these seven, the first five are gaseous at standard conditions, and of those five, there are only two that exist to a significant extent in Earth's atmosphere:
-
"N"_2 (78.0% ) -
"O"_2 (21.0% )
The remaining
Below is a neat little pie chart of gaseous abundance in Earth's atmosphere:
http://climate.ncsu.edu