Hi! I'm Nitrogen, and I am the first element on the Nitrogen group. I make up approximately 80 percent of the Earth's atmosphere. I am a colorless, odorless, tasteless gas composed of N_2. I am also colorless and odorless in the form of liquid. Although I am essential to life, some organisms can use me directly because their molecules are not very reactive. Instead, most organisms rely on nitrogen compounds. In Nature, bacteria that live on the roots of certain plants convert atmospheric form of me into compounds on me. This process is called nitrogen fixation. I am the main component of plant fertilizers.

I form many important compounds like nitric acid, cyanides, amino acids and ammonias. I am a non-metal and my electronegativity is 3.0. I have 5 electrons in my outermost shell which means that If I have three more I would be stable.

I have many different nicknames. In Greek: Nitron [native soda] and in Latin: Nitrum. I was supposedly found by Daniel Rutherford in 1772 he called me noxorious air or fixed air. At the same time, I was studied by Joseph Priestly, Carl Wilhelm Scheele, and Henry Cavendish. They called me burnt air or phlogisticated air. Antoine Lavosier called me azote, which means “without life” because I was so inert.

             If you want to know more about me, you can visit these websites:

- http://www.webelements.com/webelements/elements/text/N/key.html

- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nitrogen