Since the evolution of Mankind, the species desperately searching for another life source, apart from its home planet. As on earth, life started from a water body, water bodies all across the solar system are the best bet to find another source of life. Scientists have confirmed that massive bodies in the solar system, such as Europa, the moon of Jupiter, and Enceladus, the moon of Saturn, are entirely covered with ocean. Though the ocean present in outer space is altogether different than the sea on earth, no one can deny that these oceans might be the potential hub for life.
To know more about these water bodies, a team from Jet Propulsion Laboratory of NASA working on a project to develop a rover that could explore under-ice. They named the rover as BRUIE. The rover is about to undergo an extreme test to be qualified for the mission. The rover is scheduled to stay below the ice in Antarctica for a month. There the rover is expected to perform upside down below the sea ice, NASA revealed.
More about BRUIE
BRUIE previously went through tests in the Arctic Ocean and Alaska, and it performed impressively. But, the analysis in Antarctica will be the real test for the rover, as the ice shells present in the ocean in Enceladus and Europa are around 6 to 12 miles thick.
NASA announced that the ocean bodies across the solar system are the best place to search for life in 2017. NASA also expects that the microbes, if present in these oceans, might be different than that of earth. As a result, NASA has to work hard to differentiate life from non-living objects.
The rover will carry to cameras during the Antarctica test. As a result, scientists could navigate it and access the live feedback given by the rover. The rover will also carry several other pieces of equipment with it.
