Air is composed of nitrogen, oxygen, water vapor, argon, and carbon dioxide. Oxygen is necessary for animals, while plants need carbon dioxide and nitrogen. Human activity can alter air composition. Air follows Boyle’s law. Balloons filled with air from different altitudes will behave differently. Earth’s gravity holds air near its surface.
There are five major components of air: nitrogen (78.0842%), oxygen (20.9463%), water vapor (about 1%), argon (0.93422%) and carbon dioxide (0.03811%). Trace components make up another 0.002%. Of all these substances, the one that animals (including humans) need to survive is oxygen, while plants require carbon dioxide and nitrogen.
Animal respiration consumes oxygen and produces carbon dioxide as a byproduct, while plants consume carbon dioxide and produce oxygen. The world’s ecosystems depend on this balance. The components of the air can be altered by human activity, such as the burning of fossil fuels, which has increased the proportion of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
The air has been studied by scientists for hundreds of years. Like other gases, air behaves according to Boyle’s law, which states that the pressure and volume of a gas are inversely proportional in a closed system in which the total amount of gas and its temperature remain constant. This means that a person can decrease the volume of air by compressing it, but his pressure will increase accordingly.
You can pump air into an elastic membrane, such as a balloon, to inflate it. Since the outward pressure exerted by the air inside a balloon is roughly equivalent to the pressure exerted on the balloon from the outside, it remains inflated. However, this is only true when the pressure of the air originally injected into the balloon is similar to the surrounding ambient air. If a balloon is filled with air from the upper atmosphere, then brought to sea level, it will shrink, while if it is filled with air from sea level and brought to a very high altitude, it will burst. This is what happens to balloons that are accidentally released into the sky.
Air remains in Earth’s atmosphere because Earth’s gravity is sufficient to hold gas particles near its surface. Lighter gases, such as hydrogen, escaped Earth’s pull long ago, being light enough to allow them thermal excitation to escape into space.
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