What makes air breathable

She called it the first technology of its kind to help future missions "live off the land" of another planet. The instrument uses extreme heat to separate oxygen atoms from molecules of carbon dioxide, which accounts for about 95 per cent of the atmosphere on Mars. The remaining five per cent of Mars's atmosphere, which is only about one per cent as dense Earth's, consists primarily of molecular nitrogen and argon.

Oxygen exists on Mars in negligible trace amounts. An abundant supply is considered critical to eventual human exploration of the Red Planet, both as a sustainable source of breathable air for astronauts and as a necessary ingredient for rocket fuel to fly them home.

According to NASA, getting four astronauts off the Martian surface would take about seven tonnes of rocket fuel, combined with 25 tonnes of oxygen. Nasa's thinking is that future human missions would take scaled-up versions of Moxie with them to the Red Planet rather than try to carry from Earth all the oxygen needed to sustain them. Thrust is achieved by burning a fuel in the presence of an oxidiser, which could be simple oxygen. Oxygen is only 0. The waste product is carbon monoxide, which is vented to the Martian atmosphere.

The Nasa team behind Moxie is running the unit in different modes to discover how well it works. NASA rover successfully makes oxygen on Mars. Christopher Brito. Please enter email address to continue.

The reactor Giapis used is very low-yield, generating only one or two oxygen molecules for every carbon dioxide molecules careening through the accelerator. Giapis said, however, that perhaps his reactor could be modified one day to create breathable air for astronauts on Mars.

And on Earth, the reactor may be useful to pull carbon dioxide which is also a potent greenhouse gas, and the main driver of global warming out of the atmosphere and convert it into oxygen. Is it a device that can solve the problem with Mars? No," he said. We are doing some crazy things with this reactor. A paper based on the research, led by Yao, was published last week in the journal Nature Communications. Follow Elizabeth Howell on Twitter howellspace.

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