14 DAY TRIAL // Investigators at the Aachen University of Applied Sciences, in Germany, are currently working on an instrument called IceMole, which they say could be used to pierce the thick ice crust covering the Saturnine moon Enceladus.
This particular celestial body is one of the most promising in the entire solar system, in terms of its potential ability to support life. Many scientists believe that the interior of the moon is in fact made up of a liquid ocean, which is covered by miles and miles of extremely tough ice.
At the extremely low temperatures that exist on Enceladus, ice becomes extremely hard to pierce. As if that wasn't enough of an obstacle for future exploratory missions, there are also energy limitations to consider. Solar panels would not do any good on the surface of this particular moon.
This is why investigators are trying to find new ways of powering up advanced drilling equipment. The most complex task is finding a balance between the actual amount of power needed and the available means to produce it.
In other words, the drill needs to be able to make great progress through rock-hard ice while using only a negligible amount of energy. This makes sense considering the thickness of Enceladus' ice cover.
At this point, experts are considering a scenario in which a lander would establish a base of operations on the surface of Enceladus, somewhere close to a cryovolcano (an ice volcano). This base would then deploy – and power up – a mobile drill, which would drill straight down through the volcano.
Tests conducted with IceMole on glaciers in Switzerland demonstrated that the tool is capable of drilling at speeds of up to 1 meter (3 feet) per hour. It can go as deep as 100 to 200 meters (330 to 660 feet), Space reports.
What is more complex than actually telling the instrument to drill is to make it smart enough to figure out where it is, where its target is, what the most energy-efficient route to its target is, and so on.
This needs to be done autonomously, since the amount of time it takes a signal to travel from Enceladus to Earth and then back again makes live communications impossible. Yet, IceMole needs to steer clear of meteorites embedded in the ice, as well as other obstacles it may come across.
In the future, the German team plans to improve its designs even further. If that is possible, then we could expect to see it used for missions to Mars and the Jovian moon Europa. The latter is eerily similar to Enceladus, since it's also covered in ice, and believed to have a liquid ocean at its core.