Yahoo News NASA ‘tunnelbot’ could melt through icy shell of Jupiter’s moon and find alien life
Jupiter’s icy moon Europa is one of the most likely places we could find extraterrestrial life in our solar system – as researchers believe there’s a liquid ocean inside.
Researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago have worked out how to get to it – a ‘tunnelbot’ with a heated tip, which could melt its way into the interior.
The ‘tunnelbot’ could be our best hope of uncovering life in a liquid ocean buried beneath Europa’s ice, University of Illinois at Chicago researchers believe.
Between 1995 and 2003, NASA’s Galileo spacecraft made observations of the moon – which hint that there might be an ocean buried a mile or more beneath the ice.
Andrew Dombard of the University of Illinois at Chicago said, ‘Estimates of the thickness of the ice shell range between 1.2 and 18.6 miles, and is a major barrier any lander will have to overcome in order to access areas we think have a chance of holding biosignatures representative of life on Europa.’
Dombard and his colleagues believe that a nuclear-powered ‘tunnelbot’ could penetrate the ice – and possibly find life.
The group examined how a robot powered by a nuclear reactor would melt its way through the ice – then examine the underside of the ice shell for microbial life.
Communications would be provided by a string of “repeaters” connected to the bot by fiber optic cables.
Dombard said, ‘“We didn’t worry about how our tunnelbot would make it to Europa or get deployed into the ice.’
‘We just assumed it could get there and we focused on how it would work during descent to the ocean.’
The researchers considered two designs for their bot: one powered by a small nuclear reactor, and the other powered by General Purpose Heat Source bricks — radioactive heat source modules designed for space missions. Heat from both these sources could be used to melt the ice shell.
NASA routinely sponsors concept studies to test where the technology is that is needed to answer important questions in the solar system.
