A robot chemist has synthesised compounds that could be used to generate oxygen from water. Powered by artificial intelligence (AI), the robot analysed meteorites from Mars, space.com said in a report. Scientists said the discovery will help future crewed missions to Mars, in which oxygen will be needed, not just for astronauts to breathe, but also for use as rocket propellant, the outlet further said in its report. Producing oxygen from substances found on the Red Planet will do away with the need to carry a bunch of oxygen-producing materials from Earth.

• The compounds created by the robot chemist, known as catalysts, are capable of spurring chemical reactions that "split" water molecules to generate oxygen and hydrogen gas, said space.com.
• The Martian meteorites on which experiment was carried out were rocks that crashed down on Earth after cosmic impacts blasted them off the Red Planet.
• After scanning the rocks using a laser, the AI-powered robot calculated more than 3.7 million molecules it could make from six different metallic elements in the rocks - iron, nickel, manganese, magnesium, aluminium and calcium.