" Mars ai n’t the kind of piazza to arouse your nipper , " spill the beans Elton John . It is not just cold as hell , it lack a lot of the introductory necessity that human race require to survive , admit atomic number 8 to take a breather . And given that we would like to get humans there at some point in time , and bringing stuff and nonsense from Earth is expensive , that is a trouble that ask solving .

NASA has successfully demonstrated that it is possible to grow O on Mars with the experimentMOXIE , brought over by the Perseverance rover . Now , a Formosan team has shown that it might be potential to produce atomic number 8 on Mars using only material present on the Red Planet .

Since the AI was here on Earth , it did not utilize factual Martian soil , but meteorites from Mars . The algorithm worked out what molecule could be used to create oxygen organic evolution response ( OER ) catalyst . These catalyst would be used to flex weewee into oxygen using solar power . Wateris not an abundant resource on Mars , but there are deposit .

TheAIchemist analyse the paper of five type of Martian meteorites by shoot lasers at them . Once potential catalysts were discovered , the system used Bayesian statistic to work out the considerably possible one . The simple machine acquisition system had been readied with simulations for 30,000 hydroxides , and this grant it to work out what molecules it should be using for the OER catalyst . It then prepared the material from the meteorite to be test .

The ensue catalyst was fantabulous . investigator report that it could control steadily for over 550,000 minute ( almost 6 days and 9 hours ) with an electric current concentration of 10 milliamps per square centimeter and an overpotential of 445.1 millivolt . The squad also try it at below - freezing temperature , coherent withtemperaturesthat are found on Mars , with no apparent degradation . A Mars base could attain oxygen self - enough with 15 hour of sunlight .

The AI found 3,764,376 possible convention . For a individual human , finding the optimal formula from those would require 2,000   years of labor . The AI chemist was capable to do it in two months .

“ In the future , human can establish [ an ] oxygen factory on Mars with the assistance of AI chemist , ” one of the three team leaders Professor Jiang Jun , from the University of Science and Technology of China , said in astatement . “ This breakthrough engineering science impart us one footstep closer to achieve our dream of living on Mars . ”

The squad is now looking at utilize the AI chemist to more planetary challenges in chemic discovery .

The sketch is print in the journalNature Synthesis .