Examining a snapshot of exploding oxygen

For more than 100 years, we have been using X-rays to look inside matter and progressing to ever smaller structures—from crystals to nanoparticles. Now, within the framework of a larger international collaboration on the X-ray laser European XFEL in Schenefeld near Hamburg, physicists at Goethe University have achieved a qualitative leap forward. Using a new experimental technique, they have been able to X-ray molecules such as oxygen and view their motion in the microcosm for the first time.