ScienceAugust 19, 2026
petagram
PET-uh-gram
Definition
A unit of mass equal to one billion metric tons (10^15 grams), often used in science to quantify global carbon stocks or cycles.
Etymology
Derived from the Greek 'penta' (meaning five, representing 10 to the power of 15) and the Greek 'gramma' (a small weight). It follows the standard SI prefix system for scientific measurement.
In the news
The article uses the term to define the massive annual scale of global net primary production in the Earth's carbon cycle.
The rainforest is not the lungs of the Earth — the ocean is. Microscopic phytoplankton drifting in the sunlit top layer of the sea produce roughly half of all the oxygen on the planet, more than every tree and forest combined
Read the full article ↗ScienceBlog.com