r/EarthScience • u/PossessionOk70 • Aug 24 '26
Discussion How would a mixture of Argon, Oxygen, Hydrogen and Xenon serve as a replacement for our air?
The exact percentages I came up with are 72% argon, 22.3% oxygen, 3.5% hydrogen and 2.1% xenon, these being the main gasses aside from other negligible inert gasses that would add up to .1% (probably nitrogen and some carbon dioxide). I'm asking this for the purpose of a fictional story that halfway takes place on an alien planet, but with such an environment that a human can live in and be healthy while doing so. The size of the planet is only a bit smaller than Earth with much less water on the surface but going down much deeper into the crust.
So, these are my main questions:
Would these gasses have any unintended psychological effects on the human mind?
Would these gasses interact with each other poorly?
How would fire act in such an environment?
Would this gas mixture affect the creatures that are living there, causing them to grow differently from humans? If so, what might be different?
Would you change any of the percentages?
My apologies if I'm thinking too much into this, because the research I've already done tells me that not much would change aside from the air density. But, I may have missed something. Thank you for taking the time to read this!!
EDIT: Nitrogen would probably take place in the water, like the rivers that stretch out all throughout my fictional planet, which would feed into the soil, which would feed into the vegetation which would feed into the fruits which would feed into the animals which would feed back into the ground or water. I hope this fixes the nitrogen issue.