Can humans breathe on Mars?

Just like on Earth, humans need water, food, shelter and oxygen to survive if they set foot on Mars. Plants and some bacteria produce oxygen for us to breathe. In fact, the oxygen composition in the air is only 21%, the rest is nitrogen with 78%. However, basically, the human body does not need nitrogen, so it will not absorb this gas.

Meanwhile, the atmosphere on Mars is very thin, the volume is only 1% of Earth's atmosphere. In other words, the amount of air on the "red planet" is 99% less than on Earth. Part of the reason is that at half the size of Mars, gravity is not strong enough to prevent the atmosphere from escaping into space.

Oxygen is almost non-existent on Mars

For humans, carbon dioxide (CO2) is very toxic if inhaled in high concentrations. While CO2 makes up less than 1% of Earth's atmosphere, this gas makes up 96% of the air on Mars.

Humans would die instantly if they breathed on Mars without spacesuits.

Meanwhile, oxygen is almost non-existent on Mars when it makes up 0.13% of the atmosphere, too little for humans to survive. If you breathe without wearing a spacesuit to provide oxygen, people will die immediately from suffocation, blood boiling due to low atmospheric pressure.

So far, researchers have not found evidence of life on Mars. Surveys and exploration by robots have only taken place in the last few years.

Although life cannot be certain, we all know Mars is very harsh with little water, night temperatures can drop to -73 degrees Celsius. However, some creatures on Earth can survive in the harsh environment where life has been found in Antarctica, the ocean floor and places many kilometers below the Earth's surface.

According to The Next Web, the above areas are very hot or cold, there is almost no water and very little or no oxygen.

Although no longer exists on Mars, it is likely that life appeared billions of years ago when the planet had a thick, oxygen-rich atmosphere, warmer temperatures and higher amounts of liquid water.

The Perseverance probe used in the Mars exploration mission.

That is one of the goals of the US Space Agency (NASA) to find signs of life on ancient Mars. The Perseverance probe is searching and analyzing rocks on Mars to identify fossils of creatures that once lived on the planet.

Self-produced oxygen device on Mars

Among the seven devices on Perseverance, there is a system that is expected to make people more comfortable with oxygen on Mars. It's MOXIE (Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment), a system that absorbs CO2 from the atmosphere, converts it into oxygen, and distributes it like a tree. This is the first time a device has been able to generate oxygen on another planet.

The amount of oxygen in each operation of MOXIE is enough for a human to breathe for 10-15 minutes. Although not much, NASA engineers hope to be able to develop MOXIE into an automatic system to produce oxygen for astronauts, used as a rocket launcher for the return trip to Earth.

According to NASA, a 4-person crew needs about 1.5 tons of oxygen to breathe in a year. However, it would take about 25 tons of oxygen to launch a rocket with a 7-ton fuel tank. Instead of transporting 25 tons of fuel from Earth, engineers simply sent a 1-ton version of MOXIE to produce oxygen during the astronaut mission.

About the size of a car battery, MOXIE can absorb CO2 and distribute oxygen on Mars.

Not only supporting astronauts, the oxygen generator on Mars can also help future space travel. However, even with self-produced oxygen, astronauts still need to wear spacesuits to protect against other dangers.

NASA is working on new technologies to send humans to Mars. That could happen in the next few decades, providing the opportunity to help humans inhabit extraterrestrial planets. According to NASA, the current version of MOXIE is about the size of a car battery, but to support human missions it must be 100 times larger.