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NASA-funded Robotic Sub Makes Final Dive To Reach Bottom of Earth's Deepest Sinkhole
May 16, 2007AUSTIN, Texas-Scientists this week begin the final leg of a five-year, NASA-funded mission to reach the bottom of Cenote Zacatón in Mexico, the world's deepest known sinkhole.
No one has ever reached bottom and at least one diver has died in the attempt. Scientists want to learn more about Cenote Zacatón's physical dimensions, the geothermal vents that feed it and the forms of life that exist in its murky depths.
Previous expeditions tested the robotic probe that will make the dive. The Deep Phreatic Thermal Explorer, known as DEPTHX, is a tangerine-shaped submarine designed to survey and explore for life in extreme regions on Earth and potentially in outer space. During eight years of research at Zacatón, doctoral student Marcus Gary, who coordinates the DEPTHX mission, and hydrogeology professor Jack Sharp, both from The University of Texas at Austin's Jackson School of Geosciences, discovered the system's unusual hydrothermal nature is analogous to liquid oceans under the icy surface of Jupiter's moon Europa.
Technology developed to explore the sinkholes could be applied to future space probes of Europa, where scientists believe that deep cracks and holes in the ice offer a chance of finding extraterrestrial life.
The DEPTHX technology has also been approved for a new NASA mission to explore one of Antarctica's ice-bound polar lakes. Researchers believe ice-bound lakes hold clues to the origins of life on Earth.
William Stone of Stone Aerospace in Del Valle, Texas, is principal investigator on the project. The research team also includes robotics experts, engineers, geobiologists and geochemists from Carnegie Mellon University's Robotics Institute, Colorado School of Mines, Southwest Research Institute and Mexico's Universidad Autonama de Nuevo Leon and Universidad del Noreste.
Unique in the world of robotic explorers, DEPTHX is autonomous. The probe does not rely on instructions from humans to decide where to go or what to do. Using software developed by Carnegie Mellon graduate student Nathaniel Fairfield, DEPTHX creates 3D maps of previously unexplored areas as it swims along and then uses those same maps to navigate back to the surface.
The mission's progress can be monitored at two Web sites: geology.com, where a science writer from The University of Texas at Austin's Jackson School of Geosciences will maintain a daily blog of the mission beginning May 16, and the Robotics Institute's DEPTHX Web site, www.frc.ri.cmu.edu/depthx, which will feature daily updates, images and graphics beginning May 15.
Editors: Print-resolution photos from past and ongoing DEPTHX missions are available at http://www.jsg.utexas.edu/news/rels/051407b.html. Updates will be posted during the March expedition.
The University of Texas at Austin
Technology developed to explore the sinkholes could be applied to future space probes of Europa, where scientists believe that deep cracks and holes in the ice offer a chance of finding extraterrestrial life.
The DEPTHX technology has also been approved for a new NASA mission to explore one of Antarctica's ice-bound polar lakes. Researchers believe ice-bound lakes hold clues to the origins of life on Earth.
William Stone of Stone Aerospace in Del Valle, Texas, is principal investigator on the project. The research team also includes robotics experts, engineers, geobiologists and geochemists from Carnegie Mellon University's Robotics Institute, Colorado School of Mines, Southwest Research Institute and Mexico's Universidad Autonama de Nuevo Leon and Universidad del Noreste.
Unique in the world of robotic explorers, DEPTHX is autonomous. The probe does not rely on instructions from humans to decide where to go or what to do. Using software developed by Carnegie Mellon graduate student Nathaniel Fairfield, DEPTHX creates 3D maps of previously unexplored areas as it swims along and then uses those same maps to navigate back to the surface.
The mission's progress can be monitored at two Web sites: geology.com, where a science writer from The University of Texas at Austin's Jackson School of Geosciences will maintain a daily blog of the mission beginning May 16, and the Robotics Institute's DEPTHX Web site, www.frc.ri.cmu.edu/depthx, which will feature daily updates, images and graphics beginning May 15.
Editors: Print-resolution photos from past and ongoing DEPTHX missions are available at http://www.jsg.utexas.edu/news/rels/051407b.html. Updates will be posted during the March expedition.
The University of Texas at Austin
Sinkhole Current Events and Sinkhole News RSSGreat Lake's sinkholes host exotic ecosystems
Researchers are exploring extreme conditions for life in a place not known for extremes. As little as 20 meters (66 feet) below the surface of Lake Huron, the third largest of North America's Great Lakes, peculiar geological formations-sinkholes made by water dissolving parts of an ancient underlying seabed-harbor bizarre ecosystems where the fish typical of the huge freshwater lake are rarely to be seen.
Fossils excavated from Bahamian blue hole may give clues of early life
Long before tourists arrived in the Bahamas, ancient visitors took up residence in this archipelago off Florida's coast and left remains offering stark evidence that the arrival of humans can permanently change -- and eliminate -- life on what had been isolated islands, says a University of Florida researcher.
NASA-funded robotic sub finds bottom of world's deepest sinkhole
A robotic vehicle designed for underwater exploration plunged repeatedly into the depths of Mexico's mysterious El Zacaton sinkhole in late May, finding its previously undiscovered bottom 318 meters below the surface and generating a sonar map of its inner dimensions.
NASA mission explores world's deepest sinkhole
A NASA-funded expedition, including researchers from Carnegie Mellon University's Robotics Institute, will begin searching for the submerged bottom of Mexico's El Zacatón sinkhole with a robotic submarine the week of May 14.
Prototype Space Probe Prepares To Explore Earth's Deepest Sinkhole
Scientists return this week to the world's deepest known sinkhole, Cenote Zacatón in Mexico, to resume tests of a NASA-funded robot called DEPTHX, designed to survey and explore for life in one of Earth's most extreme regions and potentially in outer space.
NASA's robotic sub readies for dive into Earth's deepest sinkhole
An underwater robot, shaped like a flattened orange, maneuvered untethered and autonomously within a 115-meter-deep sinkhole during tests this month in Mexico, a prelude to its mission to probe the mysterious nether reaches of the world's deepest sinkhole.
Increase in severe poverty in the US has serious implications for public health
Since 2000, Americans have been getting poorer, and national rates of severe poverty have climbed sharply, according to a study published in the October issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.
NASA's Cassini Reveals Lake-Like Feature on Titan
Scientists are fascinated by a dark, lake-like feature recently observed on Saturn's moon Titan. NASA's Cassini spacecraft captured a series of images showing a marking, darker than anything else around it. It is remarkably lake-like, with smooth, shore-like boundaries unlike any seen previously on Titan.
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