Earth may have won a cosmic chemistry lottery. Researchers found that during the planet’s earliest formation, oxygen had to be in an extremely narrow “Goldilocks zone” for two life-essential elements, ...

A new approach reveals unexpected ways oxygen can bind to rare metals. Iron plays a central role in how the body uses oxygen. In hemoglobin, it binds dioxygen, a pair of oxygen atoms, allowing blood ...

Scientists from the Rosetta mission have found oxygen in the atmosphere of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, a discovery that could change our understanding of how the solar system formed. The ...

Precision measurements on the oxygen formation in stellar helium burning use gamma-beams and a Time Projection Chamber. In the newly developed method, scientists shine gamma-ray beams, such as from ...

For decades, scientists have taught that most oxygen in Earth’s oceans is produced through photosynthesis, a process in which plants and microscopic algae use sunlight to split water molecules and ...

A team of researchers just confirmed the presence of oxygen in a galaxy 13.1 billion light years away—the furthest oxygen has ever been detected. Their findings suggest that this may have been the ...

For the development of animals, nothing -- with the exception of DNA -- may be more important than oxygen in the atmosphere. A study now links the rise in oxygen to a rapid increase in the burial of ...