Robot snakes could aid scientists in the search for alien life in space.
The Exobiology Extant Life Surveyor (EELS) system is being developed at Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).
The elongated robot would slither along otherworldly terrains thanks to spinning wheels along its body.
Its target is the vent systems on the small icy moon of Saturn called Enceladus. However, EELS could be employed on Earth to navigate tricky environments.
Nasa’s Cassini spacecraft data indicates that Enceladus has a liquid ocean under its icy crust. The plumes erupting from its surface are conduits directly to liquid water, potentially making this the easiest path to a habitable liquid ocean.
Unlike rover vehicles, EELS would be able to investigate scenarios like this by crawling down crevasses and swimming through water.
The system uses ‘first-of-a-kind rotating propulsion units’ that act as tracks, gripping mechanisms and propeller units underwater, enabling the robot to access a plume vent exit and follow it to its ocean source.
Project Manager Dr Matthew Robinson says the goal is a platform that could explore anywhere, even venturing down lava tubes on the Moon.
The adaptability of the system opens other destinations such as Martian polar caps, and descending crevasses in ice sheets on Earth.
‘The current effort includes working with earth scientists to identify high-priority, high-impact terrestrial scientific investigations that will also demonstrate the capabilities of EELS in a planetary analogue environment,’ explained JPL.
Tests have so far been conducted inside Canada’s Athabasca Glacier and Mount Meager volcano.
‘Although the EELS concept was initially inspired by the vents on Saturn’s moon Enceladus, its versatility and machine intelligence could eventually be used for exploring many unvisited planetary destinations as well as on Earth.’ said JPL spokesperson Melissa Pamer.
‘It’s a versatile, highly intelligent and super awesome snake robot,’ said Dr. Hiro Ono, Principal Investigator at JPL. ‘What could be greater than potentially detecting life? To know that we aren’t alone.’
Observations made by Nasa’s Cassini mission that ended in 2017, shows the small moon contains an ice-covered ocean that erupts into space, forming plumes that contain most of the basic ingredients for life.
Scientists believed that Enceladus had a potentially habitable subsurface water ocean that contains the ‘building blocks of life’ including organic and inorganic carbon, ammonia and possibly hydrogen sulfide.
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