Oxygen extracted from the carbon dioxide in Martian atmosphere

Oxygen extracted from the carbon dioxide in Martian atmosphere

Part of: GS Prelims and GS-III – Sci & tech; Space

In news

• NASA has extracted oxygen from the carbon dioxide in the thin Martian atmosphere.

Key takeaways 

• The unprecedented extraction of oxygen on Mars was achieved by a device called Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment (MOXIE) 
• It is aboard Perseverance, a six-wheeled science rover.
• It produced about 5 grams of oxygen, equivalent to roughly 10 minutes’ worth of breathing for an astronaut.
• NASA is planning that future human missions would take scaled-up versions of Moxie with them to the Red Planet rather than try to carry all the oxygen needed to sustain them.
• Mars’ atmosphere is dominated by carbon dioxide (CO₂) at a concentration of 96%. 
• The expectation is that it can produce up to 10 grams of O₂ per hour.
• This is the first extraction of a natural resource from the environment of another planet.