A roadmap was laid out by NASA for addressing major aspects in the development of a robotic system which can explore icy moons with water oceans and are able to crack their thick, icy shells and explore subsurface seas in the hunt for life.
The space agency recently revealed results from a NASA-sponsored workshop, which was held in February, in which scientists and engineers had gathered to hold a discussion around possible “cryobot” mission concepts.
Scientists have been aiming to crack through the icy exteriors of moons present in the solar system, like Saturn’s moon Enceladus or Jupiter’s moon Europa, and drop a probe within that which can analyze the underlying liquid ocean.
The cryobot concept which scientists are trying to explore is similar to drilling into a world and involves the use of a cylindrical device which has been dispatched at the surface of an icy ocean world. The device is expected to melt the ice and slip down slowly as water flows around it and refreezes.
These probes, which use “thermal drilling” technique, have been commonly employed for investigating glaciers and ice caps which are present on Earth. However, the icy shells present in Europa and Enceladus are colder and thicker and the behavioral patterns of these places are far less predictable.
The focus of researchers has been parlaying current terrestrial thermal drilling operations into extraterrestrial environments through cryobots and NASA’s Scientific Exploration Subsurface Access Mechanism for Europa (SESAME) and Concepts for Ocean Worlds Life Detection Technology (COLDTech) programmes.
Through time, humans have learned much about the ice-capped ocean worlds and hence, the workshop organized at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) gave the scientists the chance to get involved in these projects to reconvene and ensure that these developments include robot mission architecture.
Finding traces of life in water bodies
It is known that life is dependent on many important molecules, compounds, and elements and most importantly water. Now, the discovery made by scientists that water overflowed on the arid landscape of Mars offers the inarguably exciting opportunity to discover remains of ancient life.
However, ocean moons like Europa and Enceladus provide a chance for discovering worlds which are currently habitable and may be actually hosting living things in their waters. Even though they are likely to be microbial, if found it will be revolutionary.
As per NASA, the Caltech workshop has helped in the identification of four key aspects which will help in creating the roadmap for the alien-water-world-exploring robot’s development. Those aspects are communication, mobility, thermal capability and power.