A mission to Mars has captured the public’s imagination and the possibility of making that second small step has never seemed so close. Current NASA plans include sending humans to the red planet as early as the 2030s.
Should we ever establish colonies on Mars, we'd need to build power generation engines. This would imply finding energy sources and working substances to convert heat into useful energy.
Now, in research published in the journal Nature Communications, my colleagues and I have found a way to make this happen using a substance easily found on the planet: the solid form of carbon dioxide, known as dry ice.
We have developed an engine which can harvest energy from dry ice as it turns from solid into gas. For Martian exploration, it could be a game changer.
