NASA extracts breathable oxygen from thin Martian air

NASA has logged another extra-terrestrial first on its latest mission to Mars: converting carbon dioxide from the Martian atmosphere into pure, breathable oxygen.

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The unprecedented extraction of oxygen on Mars was achieved by a device called MOXIE aboard Perseverance, a six-wheeled science rover.

MOXIE is short for Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment.

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 per cent. 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.