the.com/ozone
three oxygen atoms holding hands to either shield you or choke you, depending on altitude
means A pale-blue, sharp-smelling gas made of three oxygen atoms (O₃), which protects life as a high-altitude layer but acts as a harmful pollutant down at ground level.
from From German Ozon, coined in the mid-19th century by the chemist Christian Friedrich Schönbein, who took it from the Greek ozein, 'to smell' — because he first noticed the gas by its distinctive sharp odor, the same electric tang you catch after a thunderstorm or near sparking machinery.
- smell
- that sharp scent after lightning is fresh ozone
- name origin
- Greek ozein, meaning to smell
- good vs bad
- hero in the stratosphere, pollutant at ground level
- discovery
- named in 1840 by chemist Christian Schonbein
- sun shield
- absorbs most of the sun's harmful UV rays
ozone hole antarctica — seasonal depletion over antarctica reaching 58% loss in october 1987 at peak
great smog london 1952 — photochemical smog event that killed ~12,000 people due to ground-level ozone and pollutants
los angeles smog — chronic ground-level ozone pollution since 1943, regularly exceeds epa standards today