What percentage of the air is made up of oxygen

Admin September 17, 2018

What percentage of the air is made up of oxygen
What percentage of the air we breathe is made up of oxygen?

  1. (1). 16%
  2. (2). 21%
  3. (3). 26%
  4. (4). 31%

Answer B: 21%

The air you breathe is made up of lots of other things besides oxygen!  Oxygen only makes up about 21% of air.  About 78% of the air you breathe is made up of another gas called nitrogen.  There are also tiny amounts of other gases like argon, carbon dioxide and methane.  Plant and animal life on earth can’t survive without air.

What is the 1% of air made of?

Argon makes up about 1% of the atmosphere and comes mostly from the decay of potassium in the Earth's crust. It is an inert gas, which means that it does not react with other chemicals.

Why is there 21 oxygen in the air?

So how did Earth end up with an atmosphere made up of roughly 21 percent of the stuff? The answer is tiny organisms known as cyanobacteria, or blue-green algae. These microbes conduct photosynthesis: using sunshine, water and carbon dioxide to produce carbohydrates and, yes, oxygen.