Oxygen is an element which is found in abundance in the universe just like helium and hydrogen. The researchers aimed to find it in other galaxies as well. Many researchers have invested enough time and energy to find the most abundant element of the universe.

Nonetheless, efforts are never go in vain. After so many researches, there is “the first detection of extragalactic molecular oxygen”. It was found far outside Milky way. A pleasant moment for all the scientists and astronomers out there.

An astronomer of Shanghai Astronomical Observatory, Junzhi Wang pioneered discovery of molecular oxygen in Markarian 231. Markarian 231 is an eternal galaxy that is located around 581 million light-years from the Milky Way.

Wang along with other scientists and astronomers were in the position to find ‘11–10 transition of molecular oxygen’ because of the modern technologies. Telescopes such as IRAM 30 m and the Northern Extended Millimeter Array Interferometer played a vital role in the discovery of molecular oxygen. These are a very high range of technology as discerning oxygen outside of earth is a really difficult task because of the earth’s dense atmosphere.

As per a twitter handle 407 Dank, Markarian 231 is the nearest quasar to Earth. It is the bright, star-like point. It gains its light from the material swirling around a pair of supermassive black holes located at the center of the galaxy.

Molecular oxygen was found twice in the past 20 years. The first time it was found in Rho Ophiuchi cloud which is 350 light-years from earth. It was found in Orion Nebula which is 1,344 light-years from the earth the next time.

The redshifted light of Markarian 231 proved beneficial for the researchers. The color red has a longer wavelength which is why it traveled to our galaxy. Earth’s exasperating atmosphere was unable to block the oxygen emissions coming from Markarian 231.

However, Markarian 231 is not a recent discovery. This quasar is nearest to the earth and was discovered in 1969 only. Swinburne University is of the view that they are active galactic nuclei and are the brightest objects in the universe. An assumption has been put forward by the scientists that it might be powered by black holes with the mass of more than one billion solar masses. NASA Webb will try to find how this black hole helps in the formation of stars and interstellar materials.

However, no matter how great this discovery is, we are still not sure that if the life on our galaxy gets destroyed then we could reach Markarian 231 for survival as the vital mix of Nitrogen, Carbon dioxide, methane and other gases essential for our survival is still not found there. New astrochemical models are needed to explain the phenomenon on Markarian 231 which is several kiloparsecs away from the center of the galaxies.

It is a big achievement for our scientists as compared to previous ones. The researchers are hoping that they will find something of more value soon. We wish them luck!

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