Starting with the following years, NASA will test wind-based robots on Jupiter and Saturn because these gas formations cannot be otherwise studied. Their new project is part of the Innovative Advanced Concepts which aims to create new probes for celestial bodies that cannot be studied through land-bound means of investigation.
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory is restlessly working to make new discoveries each day. The most recent project that lab scientists have got involved in is related to the developing of a wind-based probe for gas planets like Jupiter and Saturn.
This new windbot is an alternative to Mars’ Curiosity rover, which although remarkably good at investigating space territory, it is, nevertheless, confined to the ground. For that matter, scientists have had to come up with a new mechanism for the study of other extraterrestrial phenomena.
Adrian Stoica, the author and supervisor of the current experiment has provided us with some details related to the new project. Based on his declaration, the windbot will use Jupiter’s turbulences to travel and charge its batteries. The wind-based machine uses the same technique as automatic watches; thus, recharging itself with each tilt caused by the powerful winds of gas planets.
When it comes to flight abilities, experts believe windbots have to be able to cope with turbulences and even use their force to maintain their position in the air. These abilities have been successfully observed in dandelions, the flowering plants that get us hypnotized as they take off from the ground and travel long distances through air.
Researchers have closely studied the movements of these plants and they have reached the conclusion that the plant is capable of staying aloft due to its air movements. Windbots would have to rotate themselves through Jupiter’s winds so they could constantly float.
The production of these wind-based probes would first be preceded by a research period, according to Stoica. The study has been estimated at $100,000, but researchers have explained that the project is capable of explaining many of the mysteries in space, as well as Earth’s wind phenomena.
During this research scientists plant to carry out controlled experiments on the windbot to determine what sensors the machine would have to have for a proper investigation of space elements. These sensor would enable the robot to change its direction through Jupiter’s turbulences, researchers have concluded.
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