Technology will enable you and your pet dog to fill your lungs with air while walking on Mars, where today, the atmosphere is thin and hostile to life as we know it. NASA just completed an important experiment on the Red Planet that proves we can actually generate oxygen to breathe on Mars.
That’s an important first step for humans becoming a multi-planetary species, since Mars is the first choice of many for a new off-world home.
But we can’t live there now without pressurized habitats until we terraform Mars and generate a breathable, life-sustaining atmosphere.
The Red Planet beckons, but it has less than one percent of the air on Earth.
While Earth’s atmosphere is 21 percent oxygen, the air on Mars contains a scant zero point thirteen percent oxygen.
About 96 percent of the Martian atmosphere is carbon dioxide.
Of course, the situation is different on Earth, where people and animals exhale carbon dioxide, which trees convert into oxygen for us to breathe, in an ongoing cycle.
But there is no evident plant life on Mars that could produce oxygen for the first visitors from Earth.
Accordingly, NASA engineers developed a microwave-oven sized machine named MOXIE to convert carbon dioxide into breathable oxygen.
MOXIE is short for Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment.
It landed with the robotic Perseverance rover on Mars in 2021.
Scientists set a goal for MOXIE to generate 10 grams of oxygen per hour from resources found on the fourth planet from the sun.
MOXIE recently finished collecting the experimentally required amount of carbon dioxide from the air on Mars and split the CO2 molecules into carbon monoxide and oxygen molecules.
NASA scientists were gratified to discover that during 16 separate runs of the experimental device, MOXIE generated 122 grams of oxygen at a rate of 12 grams per hour, better than engineers anticipated.
With those 122 grams of oxygen, you could keep your small dog alive on the surface of Mars for up to 10 hours. And the air would be nice and fresh. MOXIE produced oxygen with 98% purity or better.
You can hear audio of MOXIE running its experiment. Sound was captured by the Perseverance Rover’s SuperCam instrument, recorded on May 27, 2021, of MOXIE’s compressor as it pumped air on Mars.
What NASA needs to do next is develop MOXIE version two-point-zero, which will be larger and more technologically sophisticated in order to generate enough oxygen to support an entire colony of people and their pet cats and dogs, as we start to explore Mars in person or go there on vacation.
Watch this video next: Farts on Mars: Scientists Detect Methane Gas Cycling on the Red Planet
[ Ссылка ]
Subscribe to Nice Planet: [ Ссылка ]
Visit the Nice Planet Website: [ Ссылка ]
Follow Nice Planet on Twitter: [ Ссылка ]
Examine Nice Planet on Facebook:
Peruse Nice Planet on Instagram:
If you enjoyed this video, please smash the “Like” button. This will encourage YouTube to recommend Nice Planet to like-minded viewers!
Disclaimer: Any humor or satirical material that appears on Nice Planet is meant to encourage further consideration and discussion of important topics and issues, in service of our mission to educate viewers while vibrating their funny bones, using all the tools of modern civilization.
#OxygenOnMars #MOXIE #MarsColony #perseverancerover
#LifeOnMars #NASA #JPL #JetPropulsionLaboratory #OuterSpace #SolarSystem #NationalAeronauticAndSpaceAdministration #EuropeanSpaceAgency #Mars #RedPlanet #NicePlanet
Credits:
Mars and MOXIE imagery is courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech
Audio of MOXIE at work credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/CNES/IRAP
Curiosity Sol 343 Vista With 'Twin Cairns' on Route to Mount Sharp credit:
NASA/JPL-Caltech/Malin Space Science Systems
Carbon monoxide using CO-molekyl by Ingvald Straume is licensed under Creative Commons
[ Ссылка ]
Carbon dioxide 3D spacefill by Jynto is licensed under Creative Commons
[ Ссылка ]
Oxygen molecule3D by Claudio Pistilli is licensed under Creative Commons
[ Ссылка ]
