Oxygen

:This article is about the chemical element oxygen. For other usage, see Oxygen (disambiguation).

Applications

Liquid oxygen finds use as an oxidizer in rocket propulsion. Oxygen is essential to respiration, so oxygen supplementation has found use in medicine. People who climb mountains or fly in airplanes sometimes have supplemental oxygen supplies (as air). Oxygen is used in welding, and in the making of steel and methanol.

Related Topics:
Rocket - Respiration - Medicine - Mountain - Airplane - Welding - Steel - Methanol

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Oxygen presents two absorption bands centered in the wavelengths 687 and 760 nanometers. Some scientist have proposed to use the measurement of the radiance coming from vegetation canopies in those oxygen bands to characterize plant health status from a satellite platform. The reason is because in those bands is posible to discriminate the vegetation's reflectance from the vegetation's fluorescence, which is much weaker. The measurement presents several technical dificulties due to the low signal to noise ratio and due to the vegetation's architecture, but it has been proposed as possibility to monitor the carbon cycle from satellite, thus in a global scale.

Related Topics:
Absorption bands - Reflectance - Fluorescence - Signal to noise ratio - Carbon cycle

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Oxygen, as a mild euphoric, has a history of recreational use that extends into modern times. Oxygen bars can be seen at parties to this day. In the 19th century, oxygen was often mixed with nitrous oxide to promote an analgesic effect; indeed, such a mixture (Entonox) is commonly used in medicine today.

Related Topics:
Oxygen bars - Nitrous oxide - Analgesic - Entonox

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~