Astronomers announce a significant discovery: they have found molecular oxygen outside the Solar System, for the first time ever! via Fox News: In a research published in The Astrophysical Journal, they noted that it was discovered in the Markarian 231 galaxy, 561 million light-years from Earth. A light-year, which measures distance in space, equals about 6 trillion miles. "This first detection of extragalactic molecular oxygen provides an ideal tool to study AGN-driven molecular outflows on dynamic timescales of tens of megayears," the researchers wrote in the study's abstract. The find is significant since the galaxy is powered by a quasar, a highly active supermassive black hole. Some astronomers believe there are two quasars at the center of the galaxy. though that has yet to be proven. Quasars are considered the brightest objects in the universe and the quasar at the center of Markarian 231 is the closest one to Earth. The researchers used the IRAM 30-meter radio telescope in