Scientists Discover How to Produce Oxygen Without Plants

• There's new scientific evidence that shows oxygen can be produced without the help of photosynthesis from green plants.
• Scientists revealed that the breakthrough can bring about a better understanding of how the Earth's early atmospheric oxygen was formed before there were plants, and how oxygen may also exist in the atmosphere of other planets that have no vegetation.

• According to researchers from the University of California, carbon dioxide molecules break in half if they experience specific wavelengths of light radiation. The result is a C molecule and an O2 molecule.
• Scientists previously thought that dioxide molecules separated into a CO and O molecule regardless of what light wavelength they're exposed to since this is considered as a molecular process where least resistance is involved.
• Researchers revealed that to separate CO and O molecules from the carbon dioxide molecule, five electron volts are needed to break them, but for C and O2 to come together, an energy of around 11.4 electron volts is required.
• According to Arthur Suits, a chemist at Wayne State University in Detroit, the molecular behavior of carbon dioxide is very difficult to study when exposed to high energies.
• The results are not consistent, however, as researchers say experiments yielded a C and O2 result of only five percent when carbon dioxide molecules are exposed to intense light radiation.
• Author Cheuk-Yiu Ng from the University of California said that when carbon dioxide molecules are hit with this type of radiation, they can break apart in more than one channel and some five percent were the only CO2 that became C and O2.
• Suits added these findings may provide clues how oxygen formed in the Earth's atmosphere and in other planets and even dying stars and interstellar dust clouds.
• The study was published in the journal, Science.