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The best robot to search for life could look like a snake
Snaking into the ice on Enceladus might work better than drilling through it.
Researchers working on NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory's technology development project called Exobiology Extant Life Surveyor (EELS) might have a solution to both those problems. “Lots of people work on different thermal drilling approaches, but they all have a challenge of sediment accumulation, which impacts the amount of energy needed to make significant progress through the ice sheet,” says Matthew Glinder, the hardware lead of the EELS project. All this is supposed to let the EELS robot safely climb up and down Enceladus' vents, hold in place in case of eruptions by pressing itself against the walls, and even navigate by touch alone if cameras and lidar don’t work.
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