Why does oxygen exists as molecules?

Answer 1

Oxygen is listed as O2. Think about it....H20 (the two should be a subscript) - that is the formula for water. For every one oxygen atom there is two hydrogen atoms. Oxygen can not be listed alone....has to pair up.

Answer 2

Oxygen has 6 valency electrons. See the explanation below...:

Okay, so one oxygen atom looks like this is my explanation:

oooooo

as you can see from this, there are 6 valency electrons, meaning the are 6 electrons on its outer shell (its configuration is 2s2 2p4)

Atoms like to have a full outer shell. the first four shells full capacity is listed below:

shell one: 2

shell two: 8

shell three: 8

shell four: 18

For oxygen to have a full outer shell it must have 8electrons in it, it only has 6.

so if one oxygen atom merges with another, they "share" electrons, giving both a full outer shell and ultimately being virtually unreactive. (see below)

oooooo + oooooo = oooooOOooooo

hint: "o" is an electron. "O" is a shared electron.

so one oxygen atom (from the diatomic molecule) looks like this:

ooooooOO

and the other like this:

OOoooooo

So, in summary, oxygen by itself doesn't have enough electrons to be stable so it shares electrons with another oxygen.

Answer 3

The atoms of any element, except noble gasses, can't exist freely in nature. The reason is that the atoms of an element have electrons revolving around their nucleus. Every shell of an atom that has 8 electrons in is said to be stable. In oxygen atoms there are 6 electrons in its outermost shell. In order to make themselves more stable, 2 atoms of oxygen share their 2 electrons each to form double covalent bond and form an oxygen molecule O2.

Answer 4

Most gasses are diatomic because there are very weak forces holding them together.

Because both atoms in the diatomic molecule are the same, they have the same electronegativity, so neither pulls the electron density to itself. Therefore, it cannot be polar, nor have intermolecular attraction due to it. The only forces between diatomic molecules is the Vanderwaals force, which is very weak.

Answer 5

Oxygen exists as molecules because it is a diatomic element, meaning it naturally forms molecules consisting of two oxygen atoms bonded together (O2). This stability is due to the sharing of electrons between the atoms through covalent bonds, allowing them to achieve a more stable electron configuration.

Answer 6

because hydrogens charge is -1,or +1, so two hydrogen atoms's charge is neutral.