Who Wants To Be A Millionaire hopeful fails £8,000 question — can you get it right?

It’s been a pretty exciting series of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? so far this year.

Not only have we had our latest £1,000,000 winner but equally some pretty dramatic moments in which hopefuls have narrowly missed out on the top prize.

However, spare a thought for the latest contestant in the hotseat on Sunday night’s edition of the ITV show, who crashed and burned at the £8,000 mark on a science poser.

Seconds after guessing the wrong answer Jessye Olver – who went home with just £1,000 – realised her mistake. Only by then it was too late.

But what was the question — and would you have got it right?

Well it was this: ‘What is the second-most abundant gas in the Earth’s atmosphere: A) Argon B) Oxygen C) Carbon dioxide or D) Nitrogen?’

Jessye admitted struggling with the question as she told host Jeremy Clarkson: ‘Pretty sure nitrogen is the first but I don’t know what the second is. I’m really upset with myself that I don’t know this.

‘If I was sat at home, I probably would have gone with carbon dioxide, I don’t know why.’

In the end she opted to phone her friend Robert, who was also unsure of the answer, before going with her first instinct and choosing carbon dioxide as her answer.

Sadly for her it was wrong. The correct answer, for those who don’t know it, is oxygen.

According to figures from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, nitrogen is the most abundant, making up 78% of the earth’s atmosphere, with oxygen next at 20.9%

Other gases are present in much smaller amounts, with Argon making 0.93% and others in just trace form — among them carbon dioxide at 0.042%.

Jeremy told her: ‘I fear you have been listening too keenly to Greta Thunberg,’ before adding: ‘The correct answer, mercifully, is oxygen or we’d all be in a bit of bother.’

Others were quick to point out the correct answer, with one viewer saying on X: ‘Not an expert but doesn’t it have to be oxygen?’, while another added ‘CO2 carbon dioxide has oxygen in it – so how can it be?’

But while Jessye may have fallen short, she remained pragmatic about her loss, saying: ‘I took a risk and I don’t regret it.’

Jessye’s blunder comes just a week after contestant Andrew Fanko narrowly missed out on the chance to become the show’s latest millionaire.

The translator had made it all the way to the £500,000 mark when faced with the question: ‘Which of these is an EGOT winner, meaning they have won each of the four major entertainment awards — an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony?’

The four options were Lin-Manuel Miranda, Cher, Andrew Lloyd Webber and Bette Midler.

Despite asking the audience – who said Bette Midler – Andrew chose to take the money instead.

Which was just as well since the audience got it wrong. The correct answer was actually Andrew-Lloyd Webber.

Despite missing out, Andrew said he still felt ‘incredibly privileged’ to have won such an enormous sum of money.

‘It will make a huge difference to my family,’ he told ITV. ‘Once I saw the £1 million question, I knew I wasn’t going to play it. That actually made it a lovely moment just sitting there knowing I was going home with half a million pounds.’