The galaxies that give their oxygen away: Hubble solves a missing-air mystery

Dwarf galaxies make oxygen in their stars — and then, apparently, give almost all of it away. Using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers in the GLOW project (Galaxies Losing Oxygen via Winds) studied 37 nearby dwarf galaxies and found that much of the oxygen their stars should have produced is simply missing, blown out by winds from massive stars and supernova explosions far more effectively than current models predict. 'Oxygen must have been ejected,' said co-investigator Grace Telford of the University of Utah. The study, led by Kristen Wingfield McQuinn and published in The Astrophysical Journal, rewrites a small but basic chapter of how galaxies — including, long ago, our own — recycle the raw material of planets and life.