Capital Berg

Keeps People Up-To-Date

Tuesday, April 24, 2018
Log in
  • Home
  • United States
  • Business
  • Health
  • Science
  • Technology
  • About CapitalBerg
    • Analysts & Contributors
    • Advertising
    • Contact US
    • Privacy Policy
    • Terms of Use

Pages

  • About CapitalBerg
  • Advertising
  • Analysts & Contributors
  • Contact US
  • Investor Relations
  • Privacy Policy
  • SEC Disclosure
  • Terms of Use

Recent Posts

  • Three Maine Teens on Trial for Strangling and Stabbing Woman April 24, 2018
  • Medical Officer Subdued Suspect Attacking Police Officer April 23, 2018
  • County Commissioner Arrested and Convicted of Prostitution and Physical Abuse April 23, 2018
  • Des Plaines Registered Nurse Arrested for Soliciting Dark Web Hitman Services April 20, 2018
  • California Couple Nabbed by Cops After Defrauding and Killing Vietnam Veteran April 19, 2018
  • Spider Man Window Washer Sentenced to a Century Behind Bars for Child Porn April 19, 2018
  • Ohio Teen Arrest After Authorities Discover Elderly Woman’s Body in Closet April 18, 2018

NASA Considering Windbots For Jupiter Mission

July 27, 2015 By Andreas Petersen Leave a Comment

Email, RSS Follow

NASA Considering Windbots For Jupiter Mission

NASA announced on Wednesday that the space agency is considering building windbots to help researchers explore the atmosphere of gas giants such as Jupiter and Saturn.

Windbots are robotic probes built to float in a planet’s atmosphere for long periods of time. NASA representatives gave a statement describing them as “a new class of robotic probe designed to stay aloft in a planet’s atmosphere for a long time without wings or hot-air balloons”.

While NASA’s Opportunity Rover has proven to be a great success for the agency’s mission to Mars, the same technology could not be used for Jupiter or Saturn as Mars is a rocky planet and the other two are gas giants with no land for the robot to walk on.

But robot developers have made great progress in recent years, and so a group of engineers from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (Pasadena, California) have started conducting tests in order to determine whether or not creating a windbot would be a feasible approach.

The study is funded by NASA’s Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) program, which has awarded researchers $100.000 to spend a whole year investigating how such a machine would stay airborne and how it would harvest energy for the duration of the mission.

Past attempts to send land rovers to explore gas giants have proven to be massive disasters. In the mid 1990s, NASA had its Galileo spacecraft drop off a conventional probe into Jupiter’s atmosphere. Even though it had a parachute attached, the probe, a battery-powered model, only lasted for roughly an hour before disintegrating due to high temperatures and great pressure as it made its way into the gas giant’s deep atmosphere.

But a windbot could be built with rotors on several of its sides. They would spin independently and help it to either create lift of change direction.

To give you a better sense of what the researchers are going for, Adrian Stoica, principal investigator for JPL’s windbot study, used an example of something often seen on planet Earth – a dandelion seed.

He explained that dandelion seeds do a great job of staying airborne. They rotate as they fall, which creates lift, which in turn allows them to stay afloat for even longer periods of time. They’re simply carried by the wind, and Stoica said that this is the effect that the research team is going to be exploring on its windbot designs.

Stoica and his team believe that windbots would have to be able to conserve energy and store energy in the same way that certain modern watches can recharge themselves if the wearer moves their wrist in just the right way.

The energy used would also have to come from something that’s already available in a gas giant’s atmosphere, which means that it may not be solar energy since the windbot could spend extended periods of time on the gas giant’s night side.

Nuclear power may not be an option either as it could prove to be a liability, but the researchers are looking into the possibility of using temperature variations, winds, and a gas giant’s own magnetic field as potential energy sources.

Stoica also stressed that the more researchers will learn about the atmosphere of gas giants, the more that will reveal information about our own planet’s weather and climate.

While there are currently no scheduled Jupiter missions or Saturn mission, the researchers hope that their study, should it prove to be successful, will inspire field experts to focus on gas giants.

Image Source: dailymail.co.uk

Email, RSS Follow
  • About the Author

About Andreas Petersen

Andreas was too little to remember when he and his parents first set foot in America. He considers himself a true American citizen, but uses every opportunity to promote his Danish origins. He is deeply found of politics, all nations’ politics and generally looks forward to the presidential elections. His BA degree in Political Sciences has helped him get familiar to the constitutional frames of US and non-US nations.

Filed Under: Science

Subscribe to Blog via Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 44 other subscribers

Recent Articles

Three Maine Teens on Trial for Strangling and Stabbing Woman

Three Maine Teens on Trial for Strangling and Stabbing Woman

April 24, 2018 By Carol Harper Leave a Comment

Medical Officer Subdued Suspect Attacking Police Officer

Medical Officer Subdued Suspect Attacking Police Officer

April 23, 2018 By Marlene R. Litten Leave a Comment

County Commissioner Arrested and Convicted of Prostitution and Physical Abuse

County Commissioner Arrested and Convicted of Prostitution and Physical Abuse

April 23, 2018 By June Harris Leave a Comment

Des Plaines Registered Nurse Arrested for Soliciting Dark Web Hitman Services

Des Plaines Registered Nurse Arrested for Soliciting Dark Web Hitman Services

April 20, 2018 By Denise Ehrlich Leave a Comment

California Couple Nabbed by Cops After Defrauding and Killing Vietnam Veteran

California Couple Nabbed by Cops After Defrauding and Killing Vietnam Veteran

April 19, 2018 By Carol Harper Leave a Comment

Spider Man Window Washer Sentenced to a Century Behind Bars for Child Porn

Spider Man Window Washer Sentenced to a Century Behind Bars for Child Porn

April 19, 2018 By Marlene R. Litten Leave a Comment

Ohio Teen Arrest After Authorities Discover Elderly Woman’s Body in Closet

Ohio Teen Arrest After Authorities Discover Elderly Woman’s Body in Closet

April 18, 2018 By Waleed Javed Leave a Comment

Minnesota Elementary School Student Attacks Classmates with Knife

Minnesota Elementary School Student Attacks Classmates with Knife

April 17, 2018 By Cliff Jenkins Scott Leave a Comment

Florida Woman Nabbed for Giving Child Pot and Meth

Florida Woman Nabbed for Giving Child Pot and Meth

April 16, 2018 By Carol Harper Leave a Comment

California Toddler Calls Police to Report Double Homicide-Suicide

California Toddler Calls Police to Report Double Homicide-Suicide

April 16, 2018 By Andreas Petersen Leave a Comment

Houston Mother Arrested for Abandoning Newborn in Flowerbed

Houston Mother Arrested for Abandoning Newborn in Flowerbed

April 13, 2018 By Waleed Javed Leave a Comment

Virginia Man Posed as Fake Cop to Follow Female Driver Across Three States

Virginia Man Posed as Fake Cop to Follow Female Driver Across Three States

April 12, 2018 By June Harris Leave a Comment

UK Clinical Hypnotherapist Nabbed After Teen Paid Her to Have Sex in Hotel Room

UK Clinical Hypnotherapist Nabbed After Teen Paid Her to Have Sex in Hotel Room

April 11, 2018 By Carol Harper Leave a Comment

Thousands of Early Galaxies Revealed by Map of Old Universe (Study)

Thousands of Early Galaxies Revealed by Map of Old Universe (Study)

April 10, 2018 By Waleed Javed Leave a Comment

Related Articles

  • starbust stars and galaxies in the universe

    Thousands of Early Galaxies Revealed by Map of Old Universe (Study)

    Apr 10, 2018
  • statue of a neanderthal half shadowed

    Scientists Found a Possible Explanation for the Neanderthals’ Big Noses (Study)

    Apr 10, 2018
  • the planet venus

    Could the Clouds of Venus Be Holding Forms of Life?

    Apr 5, 2018
  • NASA and Parker Solar Probe Study

    NASA Ready to Send the Parker Solar Probe on its First Mission

    Mar 7, 2018
  • stars and galaxies in the universe

    Scientists Measure the Expansion Rate of the Universe, Challenge Physics?

    Feb 26, 2018
  • sunspots on the sun in close up

    Is the Sun Going to Get Dimmer and Cooler in the Next Decades? (Study)

    Feb 12, 2018
  • Two mummified brothers

    Egyptian Tale of Two Mummified Brothers Takes Unexpected Turn

    Jan 18, 2018
  • Futuristic robot holding its arms spread

    A New Type of Revolutionary Robotic Muscles Is Strong, Flexible, and Cheap (Study)

    Jan 7, 2018
  • Male rainbow peacock spider wooing a female

    The Colors Displayed by Rainbow Peacock Spiders Might Inspire a New Optical Technology (Study)

    Jan 5, 2018
  • Fossilized dinosaur eggs exhibited in a museum

    Construction Workers Find Dinosaur Eggs Beneath a Chinese School

    Dec 30, 2017

Categories

  • Business
  • Deals
  • Health
  • Science
  • Technology
  • United States
  • World

Copyright © 2018 capitalberg.com

About · Privacy Policy · Terms of Use · Contact