The forbidden abundance of oxygen in the Sun

We reexamine closely the solar photospheric line at 6300 Angstrom, which is attributed to a forbidden line of neutral oxygen and is widely used in ana lyses of other late-type stars. We use a three-dimensional time-dependent h ydrodynamical model solar atmosphere that has been tested successfully agai nst observed granulation patterns and an array of absorption lines. We show that the solar line is a blend with a Ni I line, as previously suggested b ut oftentimes neglected. Thanks to accurate atomic data on the [O I] and Ni I lines, we are able to derive an accurate oxygen abundance for the Sun: l og epsilon (O) = 8.69 +/- 0.05 dex, a value at the lower end of the distrib ution of previously published abundances but in good agreement with estimat es for the local interstellar medium and hot stars in the solar neighborhoo d. We conclude by discussing the implication of the Ni I blend on oxygen ab undances derived from [O I] lambda 6300 in disk and halo stars.