Terrestrial Air

From Lunarpedia
Revision as of 10:39, 6 July 2011 by 207.224.85.91 (Undo revision 16224 by 81.25.37.219 (talk) removing vandalism)
Jump to: navigation, search
This article is a life support stub. You can help Lunarpedia by expanding it.


This article is not yet properly formatted.
You can help Lunarpedia by Editing it
.
Please remove this template when it is sufficiently well formatted.



The percent by volume of those gases found in relatively constant amount in dry air near sea level in very nearly as follows:[1]


ELEMENT

%
nitrogen (N2) 78.084
oxygen (O2) 20.9476
argon (A) 0.934
carbon dioxide (CO2) 0.0314 (variable)
neon (Ne) 0.001818
helium (He) 0.000524
methane (CH4) 0.0002 (variable)
krypton (Kr) 0.000114
hydrogen (H2) 0.00005
nitruous oxide (N2O) 0.00005
xenon (Xe) 0.0000087


In addition to the above constituents there are many variable constituents. Chief of these is water vapor, which may vary from zero to volume percentages close to 4 percent. Ozone, sulfur dioxide, ammonia, carbon monoxide, iodine, and other trace gases occur in small and varying amounts.
The above composition of dry air is true to about 90 kilometers. See upper atmosphere.


References

This article is based on NASA's Dictionary of Technical Terms for Aerospace Use

  1. This table is from the 1965 edition of the Aerospace Dictionary.