A team of researchers from the Georgia Institute of Technology has built a new needle-like robot that can descend through ice-fields to explore the sea floor beneath —and this footage from Antarctica is the first footage it’s returned.
The robot, known as, Icefin was sent through a 12-inch diamter bore hole drilled through 20 meters of ice at Antarctica’s Ross Ice Shelf. Descending through a further 500 meters of water, it found the sea floor where it recorded these images (its capable of descending to 1,500 meters below if it has to). The team were then somehow able to retrieve the robot, too.
via Gizmodo
April 13, 2015