Calcium is a chemical element of the second group and the fourth period, with an atomic number of 20 and an atomic mass of 40.078.
Calcium is called differently in different languages, but in Latin its name is Calcium.
Calcium has many isotopes (from Ca-34 to Ca-58). Many of them are artificial radioactive with a half-life of less than 1 second.
Calcium has 5 stable isotopes, the most abundant being Ca-40 (96% in abundance).
Of the radioactive isotopes, Ca-48 is considered the longest-lived, with a half-life of 6.4 * 10^19 years.
Calcium has 6 natural isotopes (Ca-40, Ca-42, Ca-43, Ca-44, Ca-46 and radioactive Ca-48).
The calcium atom Ca-40 contains 20 neutrons, 20 protons and 20 electrons.
If you create a chain of calcium atoms from the surface of the Earth to the surface of the Moon, you get a chain of 975.8 * 10^15 atoms, which weighs only 0.039 mg.
The pioneers of calcium are Antoine Laurent Lavoisier, who in 1787 suggested that lime is an oxide of a fundamental chemical element, and Humphry Davy, who isolated this chemical element by electrolysis.
Calcium has a lot of minerals in nature: apatite, phosphorite, calcite, tachhydrite, lime nitrate, gypsum, glauberite, commandlite, scheelite, alstonite, uranotallite, pandermit, wollastonite, hedenbergite, swabite, romeite, lewisite, gidingerite, uvparovite, axite leukophane, lautarite, datolite, microlite.
The absorption of calcium in the body is associated with cholesterol, provitamin D3, vitamin D3, calcifediol, calcitriol.
The recommended amount of calcium per day for an adult is about 1000 mg/day.
All of humanity a year needs about 2.8 million tons of calcium per year, which is approximately 30% of the weight of the Cheops pyramid.
The level of calcium in different organisms differs: in humans 1.5%, in cattle 1.5%, in corals 20%, in echinoderms up to 45%.
If one adult person contains about 1-1.2 kg of calcium, then all people on our planet contain about 9.4 million tons of this chemical element (approximately 94,000 wagons).
The content of calcium in seawater is about 0.04%, which is equivalent to 540,000,000,000,000 tons (this is 2 times the mass of Halley's comet).
The calcium content in the earth's crust is about 3.25% of its weight, which in numbers is equivalent to 910,000,000,000,000,000 tons of calcium.
From this amount of calcium (which is contained in the Earth's crust), the Great Wall of China can be extended to various bodies in space: 44,000 walls to the planet Pluto, 8 walls to the nearest star to the Solar System, Proxima Centauri, and more than 1 wall to the star Vega.
After the Sun disappears, 0.05% of its initial weight will be 9.9 * 10^23 tons of calcium, which is approximately the mass of the planet Saturn.
In the human body, calcium regulates the following processes:
- cell membrane permeability;
- neuromuscular irritability;
- heartbeat;
- blood clotting;
- blood cholesterol and fat levels;
- metabolism of fats, carbohydrates, proteins and iron;
- mechanism of apoptosis.
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