Liquid oxygen

Liquid oxygen is a special kind of oxygen that has been cooled until it becomes a liquid. It looks clear and pale blue, almost like water. People often call it LOX or LOXygen for short.

Liquid oxygen is very important because it helps things burn. It was first used in 1926 by a scientist named Robert H. Goddard in the world’s first liquid-fueled rocket. Today, liquid oxygen is used in rockets and other machines that need strong burning power.

Because it is a liquid, it can be stored and moved more easily than oxygen gas. It is very cold and can even stick between the poles of a powerful horseshoe magnet. Liquid oxygen is used in space travel to help rockets fly by burning with fuels like liquid hydrogen or kerosene.

It was not always possible to make oxygen a liquid. In 1877, scientists Louis Paul Cailletet and Raoul Pictet made the first tiny drops of liquid air. Then, in 1883, two Polish professors, Zygmunt Wróblewski and Karol Olszewski, created the first measurable amount of liquid oxygen.