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Asked by bibymexsempre to Betul, Bridget, Ceri-Wyn, Maria on 24 Jun 2010 in Categories: General.
Question: what is the most important element
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Maria Pawlowska answered on 24 Jun 2010:
Hi bibymexsempre,
That’s a though question. We couldn’t go without any of the major elements and some of the minor ones as well (like sulphur – we need only a little bit of it to build proteins but without it there would be no proteins an no life). An easy answer would be carbon – when astronomers look for life on other planets they look for “carbon-based lifeforms”.
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Ceri-Wyn Thomas answered on 24 Jun 2010:
It depends on what you’re trying to do. Oxygen is pretty important to breathe. Hydrogen is important for combining with oxygen to make water. Carbon is pretty important for building up the molecules that make up you. Elements like iron, silicon and aluminium are important because they make up the planet we live on.
Almost all the elements, except hydrogen and helium are created when old stars ran out of fuel, collapsed and then exploded, and in the force of these explosions protons were forced together to make new elements. The new elements were then blasted out into the galaxy, to eventually become part of our planet, and eventually, part of us. We are all made of stardust.
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