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Oxygen is the third most abundant chemical element in the universe, after hydrogen and helium. [68] About 0.9% of the Sun's mass is oxygen. [19] Oxygen constitutes 49.2% of the Earth's crust by mass [69] as part of oxide compounds such as silicon dioxide and is the most abundant element by mass in the Earth's crust.
Selenium, which is an essential element for animals and prokaryotes and is a beneficial element for many plants, is the least-common of all the elements essential to life. [ 3 ] [ 63 ] Selenium acts as the catalytic center of several antioxidant enzymes, such as glutathione peroxidase , [ 11 ] and plays a wide variety of other biological roles .
The oxygen cycle demonstrates how free oxygen is made available in each of these regions, as well as how it is used. The oxygen cycle is the biogeochemical cycle of oxygen atoms between different oxidation states in ions, oxides, and molecules through redox reactions within and between the spheres/reservoirs of the planet Earth. [1]
Stages 4 and 5 (0.85 Ga–present): O 2 sinks filled, the gas accumulates. [1] Although oxygen is the most abundant element in Earth's crust, due to its high reactivity it mostly exists in compound forms such as water, carbon dioxide, iron oxides and silicates.
Graphic representation of carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus, and sulfur. CHNOPS and CHON are mnemonic acronyms for the most common elements in living organisms. . "CHON" stands for carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen, which together make up more than 95 percent of the mass of biological system
Compounds containing oxygen in other oxidation states are very uncommon: − 1 ⁄ 2 (superoxides), − 1 ⁄ 3 , 0 (elemental, hypofluorous acid), + 1 ⁄ 2 , +1 (dioxygen difluoride), and +2 (oxygen difluoride). Oxygen is reactive and will form oxides with all other elements except the noble gases helium, neon, argon and krypton. [1]
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After being carried in blood to a body tissue in need of oxygen, O 2 is handed off from the heme group to monooxygenase, an enzyme that also has an active site with an atom of iron. [9] Monooxygenase uses oxygen for many oxidation reactions in the body. Oxygen that is suspended in the blood plasma equalizes into the tissue according to Henry's law.