NASA hopes these little explorers can one day go to Saturn and Jupiter’s moons, likely candidates for life forms.
Imagine this scene on Jupiter’s moon, Europa, a world with a liquid ocean beneath its icy crust: a swarm of microrobots breaks through the ice and probes for life signs. It sounds like the plot of sci-fi thriller, but it’s actually the next big project in development at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California.
Already in its second phase, the project is testing the technical feasibility of the concept. The robotic vision is set to complement NASA’s Scientific Exploration Subsurface Access Mechanism for Europa (SESAME), an effort to drill through the Jupiter moon’s icy crust.
“The liquid oceans beneath kilometers of icy crust are some of the most likely locations beyond Earth to harbor life,” NASA’s Ethan Schaler reports in a news release. While no signs of life are apparent, hidden oceans present the most likely locations because of their resemblance to Earth’s watery environment.