Subsurface oceans on gas giant moons are some of the most promising places to look for life beyond Earth. NASA has now awarded funding for a project to develop a swarm of small swimming robots that would explore these alien oceans for signs of extraterrestrial life.
Jupiter’s moon Europa and Saturn’s moon Enceladus are basically big icy balls, with global oceans underneath a thick frozen outer shell. Scientists have long hypothesized that conditions in those waters could be prime candidates for harboring alien life, with the Europa Clipper mission set to perform a series of close flybys in the 2030s to search for evidence of such.
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But now, a new concept could investigate up close using a fleet of smartphone-sized swimming robots. NASA has awarded funding to develop the project, known as Sensing With Independent Micro-Swimmers (SWIM), as part of the NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) program.
Read more: New Atlas
