HOME

When it comes to water and Mars, there's good news and not-so-good news. The good news: there's water on Mars! The not-so-good news?

The Red Planet is very cold; water that isn't frozen is almost certainly full of salt from the Martian soil, which lowers its freezing temperature.

You can't drink salty water, and the usual method using electricity (electrolysis) to break it down into oxygen (to breathe) and hydrogen (for fuel) requires removing the salt; a cumbersome, costly endeavor in a harsh, dangerous environment.

If oxygen and hydrogen could be directly coerced out of briny water, however, that brine electrolysis process would be much less complicated—and less expensive.