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NASA Extracts Breathable Oxygen on March

Technicians carefully lower the MOXIE instrument into the belly of the Perseverance rover at Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in March 2019. (NASA via AFP)
Technicians carefully lower the MOXIE instrument into the belly of the Perseverance rover at Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in March 2019. (NASA via AFP)
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NASA Extracts Breathable Oxygen on March

Technicians carefully lower the MOXIE instrument into the belly of the Perseverance rover at Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in March 2019. (NASA via AFP)
Technicians carefully lower the MOXIE instrument into the belly of the Perseverance rover at Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in March 2019. (NASA via AFP)

NASA's Perseverance rover has logged another extraterrestrial first on its latest mission to Mars: converting carbon dioxide from the Martian atmosphere into pure, breathable oxygen.

"This is a critical first step at converting carbon dioxide to oxygen on Mars," said Jim Reuter, associate administrator for NASA.

According to AFP, the technology demonstration took place on April 20, and NASA hopes future versions of the used experimental instrument could pave the way for future human Martian explorations.

Not only can the process produce oxygen for future astronauts to breathe, but it could make hauling vast amounts of oxygen over from Earth to use as rocket propellant for the return journey unnecessary. The instrument, dubbed MOXIE (short for Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment), is a golden box the size of a car battery, and is located inside the front right side of the rover.

It uses electricity and chemistry to split carbon dioxide molecules, to produce oxygen and carbon monoxide. In its first run, MOXIE produced 5 grams of oxygen, equivalent to about 10 minutes of breathable oxygen for an astronaut carrying out normal activity.

MOXIE's engineers will now run more tests and try to step up its output. It is designed to be able to generate up to 10 grams of oxygen per hour. Designed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, MOXIE was built with heat-resistant materials and designed to tolerate the searing temperatures of 800 Celsius required for it to run. A thin gold coating ensures it doesn't radiate its heat and harm the rover.

MIT engineer Michael Hecht said a one-ton version of MOXIE (the currently used instrument weighs 17 kg) could produce the approximately 25 tons of oxygen needed for a rocket to blast off from Mars.

Producing oxygen from Mars' 96 percent carbon dioxide atmosphere might be a more feasible option than extracting ice from under its surface then electrolyzing it to make oxygen. Perseverance landed on the Red Planet on February 18 on a mission to search for signs for past life.

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Explorer: Sonar Image Was Rock Formation, Not Amelia Earhart Plane

A statue of Amelia Earhart at the US Capitol. Nathan Howard / GETTY IMAGES/AFP
A statue of Amelia Earhart at the US Capitol. Nathan Howard / GETTY IMAGES/AFP
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Explorer: Sonar Image Was Rock Formation, Not Amelia Earhart Plane

A statue of Amelia Earhart at the US Capitol. Nathan Howard / GETTY IMAGES/AFP
A statue of Amelia Earhart at the US Capitol. Nathan Howard / GETTY IMAGES/AFP

A sonar image suspected of showing the remains of the plane of Amelia Earhart, the famed American aviatrix who disappeared over the Pacific in 1937, has turned out to be a rock formation.

Deep Sea Vision (DSV), a South Carolina-based firm, released the blurry image in January captured by an unmanned submersible of what it said may be Earhart's plane on the seafloor.

Not so, the company said in an update on Instagram this month, AFP reported.

"After 11 months the waiting has finally ended and unfortunately our target was not Amelia's Electra 10E (just a natural rock formation)," Deep Sea Vision said.

"As we speak DSV continues to search," it said. "The plot thickens with still no evidence of her disappearance ever found."

The image was taken by DSV during an extensive search in an area of the Pacific to the west of Earhart's planned destination, remote Howland Island.

Earhart went missing while on a pioneering round-the-world flight with navigator Fred Noonan.

Her disappearance is one of the most tantalizing mysteries in aviation lore, fascinating historians for decades and spawning books, movies and theories galore.

The prevailing belief is that Earhart, 39, and Noonan, 44, ran out of fuel and ditched their twin-engine Lockheed Electra in the Pacific near Howland Island while on one of the final legs of their epic journey.

Earhart, who won fame in 1932 as the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic, took off on May 20, 1937 from Oakland, California, hoping to become the first woman to fly around the world.

She and Noonan vanished on July 2, 1937 after taking off from Lae, Papua New Guinea, on a challenging 2,500-mile (4,000-kilometer) flight to refuel on Howland Island, a speck of a US territory between Australia and Hawaii.

They never made it.