In a remarkable development for space exploration, NASA’s MOXIE—aka Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment—has successfully converted Martian air (which is predominately carbon dioxide) into oxygen. For now, it generates enough gas to sustain a small dog but the hope is to provide enough for humans and aid in the creation of rocket fuel. The machine is situated within the Perseverance rover and shaped like …
NASA’s Preventative Measures Against Potential Martian Pathogens Although the risk is small that threatening organisms will make their way to Earth via the Martian rock samples currently being collected, NASA is taking precautions. These samples—set to arrive in the 2030s—will first be held in a receiving facility that’s “capable of safely containing the most dangerous pathogens known to science,” that also “prevents substances on Earth …
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has taken its first direct image of a distant world: a planet lying outside our solar system. The image shows the exoplanet HIP 65426 b in varying infrared light, revealing that it is a gas giant, contains no rocky surface and is thus uninhabitable. From the image, astronomers were also able to discern that the exoplanet is about six to …
