As Pluto recedes from the Sun, much of its thin nitrogen atmosphere will condense as frost on the surface.

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Fossil fuel burning and fertiliser manufacture now take more nitrogen from the atmosphere than all of the planet's nitrogen-fixing microbes - and there are a lot of those bugs out there.

BBC: Leaving our mark: Fossils of the future

Like Earth, Titan's atmosphere is composed primarily of nitrogen, but the liquids and vapors on the moon's surface are made of methane and other organic chemicals integral to the creation of complex life.

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Carbon could also be used as a fuel, NASA scientists speculate, and the process would turn the carbon into nitrogen, the most abundant element in the atmosphere.

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The remainder of the exhaust (mostly nitrogen) can then be vented safely to the atmosphere.

ECONOMIST: Carbon capture and storage

The scientific explanation - streams of charged particles from sun storms interacting with electrons in nitrogen and oxygen atoms in the earth's upper atmosphere - does little to demystify the experience.

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This will produce a new atmosphere, which will consist not of oxygen and nitrogen but of vaporised rock.

ECONOMIST: To the ends of the earth

Nitrogen is by far the most abundant element in the Earth's atmosphere but most of it stays aloof in a form which living things can't use.

BBC: Leaving our mark: Fossils of the future

China is particularly struggling to curb what are known as secondary pollutants, formed when primary pollutants such as emitted sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides, from coal burning and other sources undergo reactions in the atmosphere.

WSJ: China's Pollution Fight Faces Resistance