The researchers set up two experiments involving three stable isotopes of oxygen. These are oxygen-16 and oxygen-18, which both have zero nuclear spin, and oxygen-17, which has a nuclear spin of 5/2.

Their breakthrough draws on a technique developed in 2008 by several members of the team, who had hoped to exploit the difference in scattering between two isotopes of carbon. Although that difference ...

A new series of measurements of oxygen isotopes provides increasing evidence that the moon formed from the collision of the Earth with another large, planet-sized astronomical body, around 4.5 ...

Oxygen isotopes usually sort out according to mass: oxygen-17, with just one extra neutron, is incorporated into molecules half as often as oxygen-18, with two extra neutrons.

The isotopes of particular interest for climate studies are 16 O (with 8 protons and 8 neutrons that makes up 99.76 percent of the oxygen in water) and 18 O (8 protons and 10 neutrons), together ...

The most abundant form of oxygen, 16 O, is doubly magic, because of its eight protons and eight neutrons. Oxygen-28, with 8 protons and 20 neutrons, has long been predicted to be doubly magic, too.