Replies

Wow, it never occurred to me that animals needed oxygen. What’ll they think up next?

5 posted on 09/23/2016 4:00:33 PM PDT by Tax-chick (The coming of a Cthulhu presidency will be heralded by a worldwide wave of madness.)

17 posted on 09/23/2016 4:28:10 PM PDT by EEGator

It's really rare in the Universe for a planet to have free atmospheric oxygen. It combines with other atoms so readily to form stable compounds, that most oxygen gets trapped permanently in surface rocks and so forth.

As I understand it, just about the only way to generate free atmospheric oxygen, is by photosynthesis. There has to be a whole lot of green plant activity over a long period of time, continually producing new O₂ to replace what gets trapped in silicon oxides, iron oxides, you-name-it oxides on the earth's surface.

Detecting atmospheric O₂ on some other planet would be a very strong marker for the presence of tons of plant life.

Or so I'm told.

Smart FReepers? Does this make sense?

48 posted on 09/23/2016 6:47:48 PM PDT by Mrs. Don-o (In theory, there's no difference between theory and practice; but in practice, there is. -Yogi Berra)

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