NASA’s Curiosity rover has been having quite the time on Mars over the past year. Just last September, Curiosity found evidence of water on the red planet, and this summer, traces of “drinkable water” was found on Mars. Considering how important water is for life on Earth to survive, these were pretty big discoveries, but Curiosity’s recent discovery trumps them in comparison.
NASA’s Curiosity rover has discovered the surface soil on Mars contains approximately 2% water by weight. This means if astronauts were to ever land on Mars, they could extract roughly two pints of water out of every cubic foot of Martian soil they dig up. In addition to water, when the soil samples were heated, they released carbon dioxide, oxygen and sulfur. These samples were collected in an area known as “Rocknest.”
This latest discovery by NASA’s Curiosity rover is one that can certainly help sustain some kind of life on Mars, which would be extremely helpful for those 200,000 applicants who would like nothing more than to make a one-way trip to the red planet. Hopefully Curiosity will stumble on an ancient McDonald’s, or any other fast-food restaurant so pioneers can get their Big Mac fix when they’re in the middle of making history.