NASA Working on Robots to Search Other Worlds for Underwater Aliens
upstart writes:
NASA is developing small robots to swim the subsurface seas of other world:
Some of the most promising places to look for alien life beyond Earth are the hidden oceans that lie beneath thick icy shells on other worlds like Saturn's moon Enceladus. NASA is funding research to develop tiny, swimming robots that could search these darkened depths for marine extra-terrestrials.
Plumes of liquid water erupt into space through fissures in Enceladus's frozen surface and when NASA's Cassini spacecraft flew through that cosmic mist, it detected interesting molecules that are often associated with the presence of life, like methane.
NASA engineer Ethan Schaler has developed a concept involving an ice-melting probe and a school of cell phone-size aquatic drones to explore such eerie environments. It's called Sensing With Independent Micro-Swimmers (SWIM), and it has recently received funding to create and test 3D-printed prototypes.
[...] The triangular swimming robots could be loaded into a larger "cryobot" design that tunnels its way through the ice by melting it, perhaps using radiation. Cryobot concepts are currently in development through other NASA programs.
[...] It will be some time before the little bots could touch an alien ocean. The concept isn't currently attached to any NASA mission to such a world. But the upcoming Europa Clipper mission to the Jovian moon of the same name will certainly provide valuable data from another frozen world hiding a subterranean sea. It launches in 2024 with a planned arrival at Europa in 2030.
Read more of this story at SoylentNews.