Submersible Robot Operates Autonomously Below 900 Meters
canopic jug writes:
Newsweek reports that the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute, and Stanford University have created and deployed a submersible robot which operates at a depth of around 900 meters. The robot weights 250 kilograms and can operate at depth either tethered or autonomously untethered. At depth, the water is very cold and nearly without light from the surface.
The Mesobot is capable of locking onto organisms and tracking them for over 24 hours with incredible precision.
In the robot's high-definition footage, it successfully tracks a dinner plate jellyfish ramming a siphonophore - one of the longest animals on the planet and relatives of jellyfish and corals - which narrowly escaped its venomous tentacles.
"Humans receive two key benefits from the twilight zone: the removal of heat-trapping carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and the support of commercially important fisheries in the surface waters," scientists at Woods Hole said in a joint statement.
One finding has been that the biomass in that depth zone may be ten times larger than what had previously been thought.
Previously:
(2019) Teams Autonomously Mapping the Depths Take Home Millions in Ocean Discovery Xprize
(2019) Oil-Eating Bacteria has Been Discovered in the Deepest Part of the Ocean
(2016) The Floor of the Ocean Comes Into Better Focus
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