Nitrogen

Nitrogen Gas: About

Nitrogen gas, otherwise known as N2, makes up 78.1% of the Earth's air. While the gas is usually inert, soil bacteria can change the gas into a form so that animals and plants can use it to make amino acids and proteins. The image shown to the right is nitrogen gas flowing through a tube and emitting a purple glow. Nitrogen is responsible for the bright colors in an aurora.

Nitrogen is sometimes referred to as the "burnt" air, since air that no longer contains oxygen is basically all nitrogen. The French chemist that discovered nitrogen, Antoine Lavoisier, name nitrogen "azote", which means "without life". The name is perfect, since without oxygen we cannot live.

So where does nitrogen come from?

Liquid Nitrogen

Nitrogen's natural form is as gas, and as I said before, this gas is created when oxygen leaves the air, hence creating nitrogen. So technically, nitrogen is created by the air we breathe. However, nitrogen gas is often compressed in high-industry machines and brought to it's liquid form. Then, it is used to help freeze things, but it can only be kept at an extremely low and cold temperature.

Well, I hope you learned a little something about nitrogen in this post. I know I did.
Thanks for reading,
Maddie