Human settlement on Mars could be one step closer after Australian researchers discovered a way to make metal using the planet’s red dirt.
Researchers from the CSIRO and Swinburne University announced the breakthrough on Monday, revealing they had successfully produced iron using a synthetic version of Martian soil.
The metal, which would also use carbon from the planet’s atmosphere and solar-powered heating, could be used to construct radiation shields and buildings rather than relying on materials transported from Earth.
The announcement comes after NASA revealed plans to send astronauts to Mars as early as the 2030s using a staging ground on the moon.
The Australian research project was designed to help the space agency avoid the expense and challenge of taking building materials to Mars and the possibilities presented by “in-situ resource utilisation”, CSIRO senior principal research scientist Mark Pownceby said.
By extracting metal from Mars itself, he said, astronauts could tap into the planet’s vast natural resources to establish a human-friendly environment.
“Mars is a lot easier (than the moon) in terms of extracting metals,” he told AAP.
“The red colour of Mars pretty much comes because there’s a lot of iron in what’s called the regolith, which is the dirt and dust on the surface.”
NASA had developed a way to extract carbon from the planet’s atmosphere, Dr Pownceby said, which could be used as a reducing agent and combined with heat from solar power to create iron on the planet.
CSIRO postdoctoral fellow Deddy Nababan said the research team tested the theory using an artificial version of Martian soil, placing it inside a chamber to recreate Martian air pressure and heating it.
“We picked a stimulant with very similar properties to that found at Gale Crater on Mars and processed them on Earth with simulated Mars conditions to give us a good idea of how the process would perform off-world,” Dr Nababan said.
“At high enough temperatures, all of the metals coalesced into one large droplet.”
The experiments showed pure iron metal formed at 1000C and iron-silicon alloys were created at 1400C.
Creating building materials was one of several challenges to establishing Martian colony, however, with others including sourcing food, water, power, and establishing communications.
NASA’s MOXIE project, which stands for Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilisation Experiment, has demonstrated the ability to extract oxygen from the planet’s atmosphere.
The experiments showed life on Mars could be possible for humans even though more breakthroughs would be needed, Dr Pownceby said.
“It’s beyond the realms of science fiction: people will go there and certainly Mars is easier for us to deal with than the lunar surface that has a lot of challenges,” he said.
“We need to start thinking now and doing the research now about what options we have for when we get there.”
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