Oxygen

Oxygen is a chemical element; it has the symbol O and its atomic number is 8. It is a member of the chalcogen group in the periodic table. It is highly reactive, a nonmetal, and a potent oxidizing agent that readily forms oxides with most elements as well as with other compounds. Oxygen is the most abundant element in Earth's crust, making up almost half of the Earth's crust in the form of various oxides such as water, carbon dioxide, iron oxides, and silicates. It is also the third-most abundant element in the universe after hydrogen and helium. At standard temperature and pressure, two oxygen atoms will bind covalently to form dioxygen, a colorless and odorless diatomic gas with the chemical formula O2. Dioxygen gas currently constitutes approximately 20.95% molar fraction of the Earth's atmosphere, though this has changed considerably over long periods of time in Earth's history. The much rarer allotrope of oxygen, ozone (O3), strongly absorbs the UVB and UVC wavelengths and forms a protective ozone layer at the lower stratosphere, which shields the biosphere from ionizing ultraviolet radiation. However, ozone present at the surface is a corrosive byproduct of smog and thus an air pollutant. All eukaryotic organisms, including plants, animals, fungi, algae, and most protists, need oxygen for cellular respiration, a process that extracts chemical energy by the reaction of oxygen with organic molecules derived from food and releases carbon dioxide as a waste product. Many major classes of organic molecules in living organisms contain oxygen atoms, such as proteins, nucleic acids, carbohydrates, and fats, as do the major constituent inorganic compounds of animal shells, teeth, and bone. Most of the mass of living organisms is oxygen as a component of water, the major constituent of lifeforms. Oxygen in Earth's atmosphere is produced by biotic photosynthesis, in which photon energy in sunlight is captured by chlorophyll to split water molecules and then react with carbon dioxide to produce carbohydrates, with oxygen released as a byproduct. Oxygen is too chemically reactive to remain a free element in air without being continuously replenished by the photosynthetic activities of autotroph such as cyanobacteria, chloroplast-bearing algae, and plants. Oxygen was isolated by Michael Sendivogius before 1604, but it is commonly believed that the element was discovered independently by Carl Wilhelm Scheele, in Uppsala, in 1773 or earlier, and Joseph Priestley in Wiltshire, in 1774. Priority is often given for Priestley because his work was published first. Priestley, however, called oxygen "dephlogisticated air", and did not recognize it as a chemical element. In 1777, Antoine Lavoisier first recognized oxygen as a chemical element and correctly characterized the role it plays in combustion. Common industrial uses of oxygen include production of steel, plastics and textiles, brazing, welding and cutting of steels and other metals, rocket propellant, oxygen therapy, and life-support systems in aircraft, submarines, spaceflight, and diving.