Hydrogen is the first element on the periodic table with an atomic number of one.

It's also the most abundant chemical substance in the known universe,

of the matter we can detect and measure anyway,

making up around three-fourths of all non-dark matter mass.

It should be no surprise, then,

that it's also quite abundant here on Earth.

In its pure state, at a standard temperature and pressure level, it has no color, odor, or taste,

and it's not toxic, though it is combustible, which is why it's fortunate that most of the hydrogen

on earth is not gaseous, but instead part of a multitude of compounds with other

elements. The most well-known of which is probably water, which is the casual name for H-2-O,

which means a compound made up of two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom. And water covers about

71% of the surface of the planet, primarily as oceans,

seas, and rivers, but also in glaciers, ice caps, and in groundwater. We also find H2O in its gaseous,

rather than liquid form, in the air, as vapor. All of which is to say there's a whole lot of

hydrogen all over the place, and not just in water, but blended with other elements and substances,

including organic living things. It's fairly ubiquitous. It is not ubiquitous as an isolated element, however.

In its standard temperature standard pressure form, H2, it tends to quite quickly either drift

off into space or meld with some other substance.

And that's only if it's somehow separated from an existing blended state to begin with.

Hydrogen doesn't exist on Earth in isolation, with rare exceptions.

Thus, hydrogen is generally considered to be an energy carrier, like oil, coal, electricity,

or a coiled spring.

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