The Department of Environment and Energy’s Australian Antarctic Program is to trial a NASA under-ice robot at one of its Antarctic research bases this summer.
Speaking at the Australian Antarctic Division headquarters in Hobart recently, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory scientist, Kevin Hand said it was hoped the robot would be eventually be deployed to search for extra-terrestrial life on Europa, one of Jupiter’s icy moons.
Dr Hand said NASA’s successful Galileo mission to Jupiter in the late 1990s investigated the planet’s moons, including Europa.
“They found strong evidence there was a salty ocean beneath Europa’s thick icy crust, as well as a rocky sea floor,” Dr Hand said.
“This salty ocean could hold more than twice as much water as Earth and have all the right ingredients to support simple life organisms.”
Dr Hand said NASA had its sights set on flying to Jupiter within a decade, to better understand the planet and to investigate Europa, one of the Jupiter’s more than 60 moons.
He said not only did the robot face the challenge of travelling over six million kilometres in getting to Europa, but that it would also need to drill through a 10 to 20 kilometre ice crust as part of the mission.
Dr Hand said a team of four will spend three weeks at Australia’s Casey research station in Antarctica this summer to trial the NASA robot.
