Q 01/05

If all of Earth's ozone layer were compressed to sea-level air pressure, roughly how thick a band would it form?

A) 3 millimetres

B) 3 metres

C) 300 metres

D) 30 kilometres

Answer · why

A) 3 millimetres

3 millimetres is all it would make, about an eighth of an inch, because ozone is never more than about 15 parts per million of the air around it.

Q 02/05

Over which continent does a hole in the ozone layer open each year, as British scientists first reported in 1985?

A) Australia

B) Antarctica

C) South America

D) North America

Answer · why

B) Antarctica

Antarctica gets the hole because its winter air turns cold enough for ice clouds to form, and reactions on those clouds prime CFC leftovers to attack ...

Q 03/05

Thomas Midgley, who helped develop the first CFCs, had earlier put which toxic metal into gasoline to stop engine knock?

A) Mercury

B) Arsenic

C) Lead

D) Cadmium

Answer · why

C) Lead

Lead went into petrol in the 1920s thanks to Midgley, and both it and his CFCs were later banned from common use for the harm they did to health and t...

Q 04/05

The name ozone comes from a Greek verb describing which of the senses, because of how the gas was first noticed?

A) Sight

B) Hearing

C) Taste

D) Smell

Answer · why

D) Smell

Smell is the root: chemist Christian Schönbein took the name from the Greek ozein after noticing the same sharp odour that hangs in the air following ...

Q 05/05

Which layer of the atmosphere, sitting directly above the one where weather happens, holds about 90% of Earth's ozone?

A) Mesosphere

B) Troposphere

C) Stratosphere

D) Thermosphere

Answer · why

C) Stratosphere

Stratosphere temperatures rise with height because the ozone there soaks up ultraviolet energy, and long-haul airliners cruise in the layer's lower re...