NASA's lunch box-sized instrument MOXIE successfully makes oxygen on Mars using the Red Planet's resources

An experiment from NASA has taken a small step towards making Mars habitable for humans. NASA's instrument, the Mars Oxygen In Situ Resource Utilization Experiment, or MOXIE, has been successful in generating breathable oxygen on Mars using resources found on the Red Planet — a first for the experiment. The lunch box-sized instrument has produced oxygen from the carbon dioxide in the Martian atmosphere seven times since landing on Mars in February 2021. Researchers suggest a scaled-up version of MOXIE could be sent to Mars to continuously produce oxygen at the rate of several hundred trees, ahead of humans going to the planet. Researchers suggest a scaled-up version of MOXIE could be used to produce oxygen on Mars at the rate of several hundred trees.