Dictionary

Chemical element whose atoms have eight protons each in their nuclei.

In the context of relativity, more concretely: cosmology, oxygen is interesting as an indicator of chemical evolution: Oxygen nuclei are not produced during Big Bang Nucleosynthesis, but they are produced by nuclear fusion reactions in the interior of stars. The presence of oxygen in an astronomical object is an indicator that stellar fusion has taken place, and that the abundances of the different elements thus do not reflect the element abundances in the early universe.