The ''seeding'' phenomenon associated with the supersonic expansion of
gaseous mixtures into a vacuum leads to cooling of the molecular degr
ees of freedom and also to alignment of the rotational angular momentu
m. Exploiting magnetic analysis of supersonic seeded beams of O-2 from
various gaseous mixtures with rare gases and from air near atmospheri
c pressure, we demonstrate that the phenomenon naturally leads to excl
usive population of the ground rovibrational triplet state and also to
strong rotational alignment. The observation is also made that the al
ignment depends on the final speed, so that within the same beam, mole
cules traveling faster show much greater alignment than slow ones. The
dependence of the effect on the gas carrier and on pressure and compo
sition of the mixtures has also been investigated.