In a breakthrough, scientists announced the development of an AI-based robot chemist that can synthesise oxygen from the Mars meteorite compound.
Oxygen not just plays a pivotal role in crewed missions by supporting life but is also used as rocket fuel.
Scientists claimed that the AI robot chemist has experimented to produce some of those water-splitting catalysts, these tests were conducted with samples found on the red planet without human intervention. The robot is equipped with a laser to scan ore on Mars.
"The AI chemist selected, synthesised and tested 243 of those different molecules. The best catalyst the robot found could split water at minus 34.6 degrees F (minus 37 degrees C), the kind of cold temperature found on none other than Mars," researchers noted.
"It would have taken a human scientist something like 2,000 years to find that best catalyst using conventional trial-and-error techniques," Jun Jiang, co-senior author of the study and a scientist at the University of Science and Technology of China in Hefei, told Space.com.
The scientist said that these findings could be very helpful in science, however, at the same time, AI needs the guidance of human scientists.
However, scientists are not sure how the AI robot will perform in Mars's atmosphere as the red planet's atmospheric composition, including air density, humidity, gravity and so on, differs from those on Earth.