A laser-powered probe might be the next step in seeing what's under the icy crust of Jupiter's moon Europa.
The idea was presented by inventor Bill Stone at NASA's Astrobiology Science Conference in Atlanta. His company Stone Aerospace has built robotic underwater vehicles for exploring under the Antarctic ice sheets. Stone's proposal is for a "cryobot" powered by a 5,000-watt laser. The laser light is transmitted via a fiber optic cable that unspools behind the robot as it drills through 250 meters of ice.
The robot, a 10-inch-wide, six-foot-long cylinder called VALKYRIE, would melt the ice ahead of it and leave the power plant on the surface. Stone Aerospace has tested a protoype of such a device and plans to try it out on an Alaskan glacier in June 2013.
Read More: http://news.discovery.com/tech/laser-powered-robot-could-explore-europan-seas-120424.html
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