NASA is testing a new submarine that will probe for undiscovered sea life and scientists eventually want it to look for aliens on Europa. The major goal is to explore the “Hadal Zone“.
NASA, along with leading non-profit Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), is building up a brand new deep sea submarine that will explore the largely unexplored ‘Hadal Zone’ – 6,000-11,000 meters below the surface.
The submarine called the Orpheus will survey that underwater area with loads of scientific instruments. Orpheus is a 600 pound drone aimed to explore the Hadal Zone entirely on its own.
Orpheus is equipped with four Go-Pro like cameras with flashes to help the vehicle navigate on its own and capture the scenery. The drone is entirely autonomous, when it decided to come up for air, it releases a couple of steel weights that fall to the sea floor, this allows Orpheus to float up to the surface.
The $1.2 million mission robot is also meant to be small and light so that if everything goes according to the plan, similar vehicle can explore icy oceans of Jupiter’s smallest moon Europa as well.