Skip to main content

Scientists want to farm oxygen from the Martian soil

Of the many dangers future human explorers will face on Mars, one of the most troublesome is the toxic chemicals that exist in the Martian soil or regolith. But these chemicals aren’t only a hindrance to exploration — they could also be key to producing usable oxygen on a planet where the majority of the atmosphere is carbon dioxide.

The European Space Agency (ESA) is developing a device that can detect chemicals called reactive oxygen species. These come from sources such as perchlorates, the salts found on the Martian surface which are known to cause thyroid issues and other health problems in humans. There are two big reasons to detect such chemicals: Firstly, to make sure explorers don’t come into contact with them, and secondly, to make sure that the oxygen they can give off isn’t mistaken for a sign of life.

The "Kimberley" formation on Mars taken by NASA's Curiosity rover. The strata in the foreground dip towards the base of Mount Sharp in the background.
A view from the “Kimberley” formation on Mars taken by NASA’s Curiosity rover. The strata in the foreground dip towards the base of Mount Sharp, indicating flow of water toward a basin that existed before the larger bulk of the mountain formed. NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

Such a detection device, however, could have other useful applications too. “The exciting aspect is that this technique can be used for more than just superoxide detection,” explained ESA materials and processes engineer Malgorzata Holynska in a statement. “The project, supported through ESA’s Technology Development Element, will include the initial design of a large scale reactor device to periodically extract oxygen from soil, what we term ‘oxygen farming’. Solar UV irradiation will then replenish their oxygen supply within a matter of hours. The estimate is that a 1.2 hectare (3 acre) area would yield enough oxygen to keep a single astronaut alive.”

Recommended Videos

It is difficult to test this developing technology, however. There do exist simulants of the Martian soil, created for research based on what we know about the composition of the regolith there. However, for safety reasons, these simulants have the dangerous chemicals removed, and these are crucial for testing. So the team is creating their own regolith simulant, as well as using samples of Martian and lunar meteorites. The team says it is planning to apply to NASA to see if they can get actual lunar samples from the Apollo missions to test on as well.

Please enable Javascript to view this content

“The aim is that the prospecting detector should be smaller than a paperback book,” said Dr. Ioannis Markopoulos, leader of the company 01 Mechatronics company which is planning to produce a prototype detector. “It is likely that astronauts would find it useful across the entire span of any mission to the Moon and Mars.”

Georgina Torbet
Georgina has been the space writer at Digital Trends space writer for six years, covering human space exploration, planetary…
Asimov’s vision of harvesting solar power from space could become a reality
Simplified diagram of space solar power concept..

It's an idea straight out of science fiction: A space station orbits around Earth, harvesting energy from the sun and beaming it down to our planet. Isaac Asimov popularized the concept in his 1941 story Reason, and futurists have been dreaming about it ever since.

But this notion is more than just an idle fantasy -- it's a highly practical concept being pursued by space agencies across the world, and it's almost within reach of current technologies. It could even be the solution to the energy crisis here on Earth.

Read more
The 60 best space photos of all time from Nasa, Hubble, and more
This landscape of “mountains” and “valleys” speckled with glittering stars is actually the edge of a nearby, young, star-forming region called NGC 3324 in the Carina Nebula. Captured in infrared light by NASA’s new James Webb Space Telescope, this image reveals for the first time previously invisible areas of star birth.

We're living through a golden age of space exploration, from rovers landing on Mars to astronauts living on board the International Space Station to the most complex and capable telescopes ever devised sending back stunning images of the cosmos. With technology like the high definition cameras on the Perseverance rover and the incredible sensitive infrared detectors on the James Webb Space Telescope, we're getting new views of the world beyond our own planet every day.

Some images of space stay entrenched in the public imagination, like the famous Pale blue Dot photos from 1990. It shows Earth as seen by the Voyager spacecraft just minutes before its camera was turned off. Traveling beyond the orbit of Pluto, the image shows the view when Voyager turned back around and viewed Earth -- the tiny, almost imperceptible dot seen against the emptiness of space.

Read more
Scientists want your help to search for black holes
An illustration of a black hole.

Even though black holes swallow anything that comes near them -- even light -- they are still possible to locate by looking for signs of their effects. Black holes are extremely dense, so they have a lot of mass and a strong gravitational effect that can be observed from light-years away. But the universe is a big place, and researchers are hoping that the public can help them to identify more black holes in the name of scientific exploration.

A project called Black Hole Hunter invites members of the public to search through data collected by NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) to look for signs of a black hole. Using a technique called gravitational microlensing, citizen scientists will look at how the brightness of light from various stars changes over time, looking for indications that a black hole could have passed in front of a star and bent the light coming from it. This should enable the project to identify black holes that would otherwise be invisible.

Read more