MEXICO: NASA probes Mexican sinkhole as proxy for Jupiter's icy moon

Record ID: 303163

  • Title: MEXICO: NASA probes Mexican sinkhole as proxy for Jupiter's icy moon
  • Date: 20th May 2007
  • Summary: (L!WE) EL ZACATON, TAMAULIPAS, MEXICO (MAY 17, 2007) (REUTERS) WIDE SHOT EL ZACATÓN SINKHOLE UNDERWATER ROBOT BEING TRANSPORTED TO SINKHOLE ON TRAILER SCIENTISTS CHECKING ROBOT NASA LOGO ON ROBOT SCIENTIST CHECKING ROBOT VARIOUS OF CRANE MOVING ROBOT SCIENTIST CHECKING ROBOT DIVERS WITH ROBOT IN WATER (SOUNDBITE) (Spanish) BIOLOGIST ANTONIO FREGOSO, MEXICO NORTHEAST UNI
  • Embargoed: 4th June 2007 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Mexico
  • Country: Mexico
  • Topics: Science / Technology,Space
  • Reuters ID: LVA166203S8JW0L0Q6SHORVXGYD
  • Story Text: NASA is testing an underwater robot in one of Earth's deepest sinkholes in a first step toward searching for life on Jupiter's icy moon, Europa.
    El Zacaton, near the Gulf coast of north-eastern Mexico, is so large it could easily hold the Eiffel Tower.
    Scientists plan to map and take samples in the dark, water-filled fissure with the 1.5 tonne DEPTHX robot over the next two weeks as a prelude to the proposed navigation of Europa's ice-capped oceans in about 20 years.
    Lowered by a 60-tonne crane, the battery-powered robot, nicknamed "Clementine" for its round shape and orange colour, will make daily descents into the vertical cave.
    "The robot is mapping the underwater caves. It is analysing the water and searching for life at depths never explored before. What we want to know is: how much life is down there," biologist Antonio Fregoso from the Mexico Northeast University said.
    Clementine produces three-dimensional maps, collects rock samples and using floodlights, films nooks and crannies too deep for divers to reach.
    The mission is the latest step in a 400-year-old endeavour to understand Jupiter and its distant moons.
    Mars, Europa and Saturn's moon Enceladus are the only known places in the solar system known to have or have had water, the basis for all life.
    The idea of using an automated robot was dreamed up by Texas scientist Marcus Gary at a barbecue in 2001. In 2003, his team won NASA funding for the
    3 million U.S. dollar project.
    "The project is designed to begin development of technology to search for life on Jupiter's moon: "Europa" and to do that you have to go through kilometres of ice and then get into a liquid ocean. So if you are going to search for life in this liquid ocean you have to have a vehicle that can swim around, know where it is, collect samples and then come back and transfer the information collected," geologist Marcus Gray from the University of Texas said.
    Finding organisms different from those on Earth may provide scientists with answers to questions ranging from where diseases come from to how our sun and planets formed more than 4.5 billion years ago.
    "So a lot of what we do know, we are going to identify micros in this spring contributed to evolution. We know more and more about the kinds of life and where they live and how are they related with each other, if we are going to find life elsewhere, first we have to know about our life," microbiologist John Spear from the Colorado School of Mines (CSM) said.
    Thought to have twice as much water as Earth, Europa has intrigued scientists ever since Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei observed Jupiter's four largest moons for the first time in 1610.
    NASA hopes to take the probe to Antarctica in November 2008 to test it in much colder waters below the frozen ice that resembles Europa. If funding can be found, the scientists could send a much smaller version of the robot to Europa in about 20 years.
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