Mapping Sol

[narf poit chez BOOM]

the nitrogen is mostly a balancing agent so we don't have to much oxygen.

[Fyron]

Originally posted by narf poit chez BOOM:
the nitrogen is mostly a balancing agent so we don't have to much oxygen.

Where did you hear that?

[narf poit chez BOOM]

i think you said something like that. plus other places.

[Fyron]

I think you are remembering a post wrong, as I never said that.

[Phoenix-D]

Well, too high a partial pressure of oxygen -is- poisonous (same for carbon dioxide, actually). But I don't think I've read anything like Narf's statement.

[Baron Munchausen]

Heh...

Too much oxygen is poisonous because we've evolved in this atmosphere which is 70 percent+ nitrogen. A (nearly) pure oxygen atmosphere would not necessarily be impossible for life to exist in, though unlikely in 'real life' because free oxygen is chemically unstable. It's the presence of life that maintains the current percentage of oxygen in Earth's atmosphere now. It would all be soaked up in chemical compounds within a few million years without constant renewal by plants. Many simpler life forms on Earth today could handle a nearly pure oxygen atmosphere, though.

It's much the same for CO2. We humans would die in an atmosphere of more than 4 or 5 percent CO2, as I recall. This is not a universal constant but simply a function of how human physiology turned out. Lots of simpler animals can handle more than 4 or 5 percent CO2.

[DavidG]

You want to map the sol system only??? Got 10 minutes to spare? Now if you want to map the closest 100 systems that would be a really cool project! (one I've thought about doing myself but that map editor ... )