Why is most of the atmosphere nitrogen?
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Nitrogen in the atmosphere exists as molecules consisting of two atoms connected with a triple bond. This bond is extremely strong, and for that reason atmospheric nitrogen is very hard to get to chemically react with anything, which would be necessary to remove it from the atmosphere. So once that nitrogen got into the atmosphere at an early point in Earth’s history, it then just stayed there and remains there to this day.
Living things (certain microorganisms) have the ability to extract nitrogen from the atmosphere, which is very important since building any organism requires nitrogen. But that nitrogen eventually goes back into air through the action of other microorganisms, so nitrogen content in the atmosphere remains the same.
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