Oxygen traditionally was not supposed to be formed in the early universe, especially after the Big Bang, but now a shocking new finding has scientists puzzled. Just a while ago, a huge claim was doing the rounds on social media. A viral tweet explained it best that oxygen has been discovered 'literally at the edge of time', implying in a way that this single finding might upend the entire Big Bang theory.
Now, obviously, it sounds like a complete rewriting of cosmic history. After all, the Big Bang model tells us that in the first few hundred million years of the universe's existence, only the lightest elements should have formed. The heavier elements, such as oxygen, were expected to exist only later when stars had lived and died long enough to forge them. However, the truth is more nuanced. Astronomers have actually detected oxygen in an extremely distant galaxy that existed when the universe was very young, and it has some big implications.
