I know the nitrogen in the atmosphere is relatively inert but what is its purpose and what would happen if it all vanished or was replaced with another gas like Oxygen or CO2?
In: Planetary Science
If you just took it away completely and had just 5 psi oxygen then animals could live (this is the atmosphere they used in early space missions), but the lower pressure world probably do crazy things to the climate and temperature.
If you replaced it with oxygen then everything would be insanely flammable (see the Apollo 1 disaster).
If you replaced it with CO2 all animals would die of CO2 poisoning (see the role of the CO2 scrubbers in Apollo 13), and potentially it would trap enough heat to turn Earth into more Venus-like conditions.
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