A NASA experiment on Mars has turned some of the planet's wispy, toxic atmosphere into oxygen. The Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment (MOXIE) landed with the Perseverance rover on 18 February and has now completed its first test. The atmosphere on Mars is mostly made of carbon dioxide. It is also 100 times thinner than Earth's atmosphere, so even if it did have a similar composition to the air here, humans would be unable to breathe it to survive. If we ever send astronauts to explore Mars, they would have to bring their own oxygen with them. Oxygen is also a key ingredient in most rocket fuels, so if those astronauts want to come back home, they will have to carry heavy tanks of fuel with them on their entire journey. NASA estimates that to get four astronauts back from Mars would take about 25 tonnes of oxygen. It is extraordinarily expensive to carry anything to Mars and rockets have limited capacity, so every gram counts.
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