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.
What the Viral Theory Claims
It is not just about one tweet because this viral message that has been shared a lot online is based on the discovery of oxygen in a galaxy known as JADES-GS-z14-0. This galaxy is so far away that its light has taken about 13.4 billion years to reach Earth, meaning we are seeing it as it was about 300 million years after the Big Bang, yes, we are looking into the past. Now, according to this theory, this finding shatters current understanding because, in the earliest time after the universe began, heavier elements like oxygen should not have existed yet. Here is one of the posts:
Oxygen has been discovered literally at the edge of time.
— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) December 23, 2025
A groundbreaking discovery is compelling astronomers to revise our understanding of the universe's earliest epochs. Observations with the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) and the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter… pic.twitter.com/RapJ1R0PKc
Moreover, this idea comes from standard cosmological models which explain that the Big Bang produced mainly hydrogen and helium, with some amounts of lithium. So, heavier elements, what astronomers call 'metals', are synthesised only in the cores of stars and dispersed into space when those stars explode. Then, detecting these giant quantities of oxygen so early implies many generations of stars must have lived and died in super fast succession, much faster than many models had predicted. Here is another post:
BREAKING🚨: Oxygen has been discovered at the edge of time! 🌌
— Night Sky Today (@NightSkyToday) October 3, 2025
Astronomers are once again being forced to rethink the timeline of the early universe, thanks to a groundbreaking discovery by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST).
A distant galaxy, named JADES-GS-z14-0, has been… pic.twitter.com/1zgd00GRqi
Now, many people allegedly took this theory and this discovery as an implication that scientists will have to trash the Big Bang theory entirely and rewrite the earliest chapters of the cosmos.
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Scientific Reality and What It Means
Let's get to the hard facts. It is true that the presence of oxygen in such an ancient galaxy was unexpected. Two independent teams of astronomers using the Atacama Large Millimetre/submillimetre Array (ALMA) reported the detection of an emission line from ionised oxygen in JADES-GS-z14-0. The oxygen detection was so clear that it allowed a very accurate measurement of the galaxy's distance, refining its redshift to about z = 14.18.
So, this confirmed how early in the universe's history the galaxy existed. The researchers found that the galaxy is far more chemically mature than current models would tell, pointing out that star formation and the enrichment of the interstellar medium happened very fast in some parts of the early universe.
Moreover, no matter what the viral theories might imply, this oxygen discovery does not overthrow the Big Bang theory itself. The Big Bang model remains the best explanation for the origin and evolution of the universe because it accurately predicts a big bunch of observations, including the cosmic microwave background and the quantities of the lightest elements. So, instead, the new finding is important because it poses a problem to our understanding of how galaxies evolved in the first few hundred million years.
Furthermore, current cosmological simulations have shown that the first generations of stars would have taken tens of millions of years to form, die, and enrich their surroundings with heavy elements. However, detecting substantial oxygen at around 300 million years after the Big Bang implies that this process was already happening. Astronomers have described the finding as like discovering an adolescent in a nursery where only infants were expected.
Both teams involved in the research reported emission lines from doubly ionised oxygen ([OIII] at 88 micrometres) in this galaxy. The presence of this emission means that the galaxy has already formed multiple generations of massive stars with the ability to produce these heavier elements before ending their lives in supernova explosions.
This discovery definitely pushes back the timeline for chemical enrichment in the cosmos, but, importantly, still remains compatible with the overall theory of Big Bang cosmology.
