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I was doing some Fermi style questions and one of them got me thinking about how many atoms are in the average molecule. Since hydrogen is the most abundant, and hydrogen is diatomic I guessed around 2. But I could be completely off.

Is there any good way to calculate this/has someone already?

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  • $\begingroup$ I remember reading an article that asserts that $10^{60}$ molecules can be formed up to 30 atoms. If my memory fails on that, I am sure that there are more than 10 million of molecules formed by different numbers of atoms. Then, I don't think that the average number of atoms in a molecule can be guessed in that form. $\endgroup$
    – Verktaj
    Commented Mar 13, 2020 at 20:50

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You are right about hydrogen and helium but there are very many different molecules of a wide range of size in terms of atoms. The largest synthetic molecule has 200 million atoms. If you are just talking about molecules in space there are atoms heavier than He. Buckyballs, with 60 carbon atoms were found in a nebula. But you are right. Most of the mass of molecules in space is molecular hydrogen.

REF: https://academic.oup.com/astrogeo/article/44/6/6.14/482117

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