Atomic oxygen, the volatile transient state of single oxygen atoms, is a phenomenon that exists at many levels in our atmosphere. Its presence perhaps most recognizable in the Northern Lights or auroras of dazzling green and red light in the night sky, or in airglow, which gives Earth a faint luminescence seen from space. In the laboratory, the generation of single oxygen atoms from water using photon energy is not a standard or expected result in chemistry. Until one can breach the standard. Researchers at PETRA III and MAX IV Laboratory recently reported a new ultrafast dissociation pathway for gaseous water that produces neutral atomic oxygen using ultrabright X-rays and resonant Auger spectroscopy.