14 DAY TRIAL // Investigators at the University of Glasgow are proposing a new, innovative system for conducting research in deep space, and on other planets and moons. Rather than building a large, expensive robot, they are advocating the creation of multiple, “Smart Dust” shape-shifting devices.
Such instruments would be very tiny, and their weight would allow for them to be carried on winds that form on exoplanets or exomoons. All components in the Smart Dust system will be able to communicate with each other, and fly in formation.
Additionally, the devices would also be able to take scientific measurements in unison, augmenting each other's capabilities whenever the need arises. Deploying such a system on an alien world would be a lot cheaper than sending a massive rover, lander, or orbiter.
The idea of using smart dust swarms as a means of conducting cheap space exploration is not a new one, but the Glasgow team is one of the first ones to investigate the requirements that are needed to put this plan into practice.
Expert Dr. John Barker, the leader of the new investigation, believes that computer chips of the sophistication and level of miniaturization required by such a mission exist today, Daily Galaxy reports.
“In our simulations we've shown that a swarm of 50 smart dust particles can organize themselves into a star formation, even in turbulent wind. The ability to fly in formation means that the smart dust could form a phased array,” the expert believes.
“It would then be possible to process information between the distributed computer chips and collectively beam a signal back to an orbiting spacecraft,” he adds. The orbiter would act as a forward base of operations, centralizing incoming data, and the processing them before sending them to Earth.
Launching several tens of thousands of smart dust elements may be the best option for analyzing the fast winds that telescopes detected in the atmospheres of certain exoplanets. On those celestial bodies, hurricanes produce air waves that travel at thousands of miles per hour.
“By 2020, we should have chips that have components which are just a few nanometers across, which means our smart particles would behave more like macro-molecules diffusing through an atmosphere rather than dust grains,” Dr. Barker concludes.