Canadian scientists help discover molecular oxygen in space

WATERLOO, Ont. (CP) – Outer space may not be a black void after all.

A team of scientists from Canada and other countries have discovered molecular oxygen in interstellar space. The team of Canadian, Swedish, French and Finnish researchers has been seeking the elusive oxygen molecule with an orbiting space observatory.

Michel Fich, a University of Waterloo professor of physics and astronomy, says the molecule was found in a dense gas cloud in the constellation of Ophiuchus, about 500 light years away.

Astrochemists have long argued that the basic molecules of life – water and oxygen – are abundant in the denser regions of the interstellar medium.

The Canadian members of the team include Fich, Sun Kwok and Rene Plume of the University of Calgary, Christine Wilson of Hamilton’s McMaster University, and George Mitchell of Saint Mary’s University in Halifax.

The team’s findings are reported in the current issue of Astronomy and Astrophysics.