Martian Petrichor

2023, steam distillation experiment, Martian simulant soil exposed to Earth atmosphere

Martian Petrichor (2023) speculates on the future existence of petrichor on Mars. The Martian simulant soil (‘Martian’ dirt whose minerals are in proportion to actual Martian soil and is commercially available) was exposed to the atmosphere of the Earth, allowing the oils of petrichor to incubate into the Martian soil and creating a speculative Earth/Mars hybrid scent using the original petrichor experiment of Isabel Joy Bear and Richard Grenfell Thomas of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) in 1964.

PROCESS

Bags of Martian simulant soil were obtained from The Martian Garden.

The soil was heated to kill bacteria, similar to Bear and Thomas’s experiment.

Martian simulant samples were placed in reusable containers.

The soil was placed in a garden in Sydney from two to four weeks to absorb the petrichor secreted by the surrounding plants.

The soil was collected and subjected to steam distillation to collect the scent.

The biomass chamber of the experiment was drenched after four hours of distillation.

The condensate travelled through the glassware and slowly through the other end of the distillation experiment.

The scented liquid was poured into a 3d-printed version of Gale Crater made of absorbent material. The 3D file is open-source from NASA.

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