Astronomers detect large amounts of oxygen in ancient star's atmosphere

An international team of astronomers from the University of California San Diego, the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC), and the University of Cambridge have detected large amounts of oxygen in the atmosphere of one of the oldest and most elementally depleted stars known—a "primitive star" scientists call J0815+4729.

This new finding, which was made using W. M. Keck Observatory on Maunakea in Hawaii to analyze the chemical makeup of the ancient star, provides an important clue on how oxygen and other important elements were produced in the first generations of stars in the universe.

Continued...
Source

This animation illustrates the earliest epoch of the universe, just after the Big Bang, when the first elements of hydrogen, helium, and lithium were created in the still hot cosmos. These atoms eventually collected to form the first generation of massive stars, which in turn produced heavier elements such as carbon, oxygen, and nitrogen.

As these massive stars exploded as supernovae, they released these heavier elements into the universe, eventually collecting on next generation stars such as J0815+4729, with its unusually high abundance of oxygen. Credit: Gabriel Pérez Díaz, SMM (IAC)

Source