Why doesn't the hydrogen in the earth's atmosphere react with oxygen to form water?

grovermj

It actually does, but since there is hardly any hydrogen in the atmosphere (<1%) it is hardly noticeable. Aug 04 06, 11:10 PM

What-A-Mess

Teenie-Weenie amounts of H in the Atmosphere. Aug 05 06, 4:09 AM

me07	Since hydrogen is the lightest element, it escapes out of the earth's atmosphere. Aug 05 06, 7:28 AM

Arpeggionist

Well, hydrogen makes up less of a percentage our our atmosphere than is necessary to form water. It could be argued that what hydrogen and oxygen did form water did it some 4 billion years ago when the Earth's crust was forming, thus giving us our modern oceans and seas. Aug 05 06, 1:09 PM

Gnomon

It takes a source of high temperature to cause the H2 and O2 to ignite and form water. If there were a fixed amount of hydrogen in the atmosphere, then this would eventually happen and all the Hydrogen would be used up. But the hydrogen is constantly leaking into space due to its lightness, and new hydrogen is bubbling up through volcanoes from the centre of the earth, so there is always a small amount of hydrogen in the atmosphere that has not yet combined with the oxygen to make water. Aug 05 06, 1:56 PM