Watch Nasa’s swimming ‘robo-fish’ built to hunt for alien life in hidden ocean on Jupiter’s moon in daring mission

The frozen moons of Jupiter and Saturn may have hidden waters where a “SWARM” of tiny robot fish may search for extraterrestrial life.

NASA has shown futuristic video of its prototype SWIM robots, which are designed to navigate uncharted waters.

Sensing With Independent Micro-swimmers, or SWIM, is a project aimed at searching for extraterrestrial life.

For a long time, scientists thought that Saturn’s Enceladus and Jupiter’s Europa might contain evidence of current or past life.

NASA’s small robots could safely explore underwater, but sending humans for a swim in these alien environments is a far-fetched idea.

The prototypes weigh five pounds and are roughly 16.5 inches in length.

However, the final version, according to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, will be roughly three times smaller—roughly the size of a smartphone.

Ethan Schaler of NASA stated, “People may wonder why NASA is creating an underwater robot for space exploration.”

It’s because we believe that life requires water, and there are locations in the solar system where we wish to search for life.

“So we need robots that can explore those environments autonomously, hundreds of millions of miles from home.”

During NASA’s test, the prototype SWIM robots paddled around the California Institute of Technology’s 75-foot competition swimming pool in Pasadena.

To travel underwater, the robots have four steering flaps in addition to two propellers.

Crucially, the robots are made to function independently, which is crucial considering how distant from Earth they would be on a trip.

“It s awesome to build a robot from scratch and see it successfully operate in a relevant environment,” Schaler stated.

“This is only the first of many concepts we would need to work through in order to get ready for a voyage to an ocean planet, and underwater robots in general are really difficult.

“But it s proof that we can build these robots with the necessary capabilities and begin to understand what challenges they would face on a subsurface mission.”

According to NASA, a “underwater acoustic communication system” would be used by the robots.

The bots would be able to communicate data and determine their whereabouts as a result.

Digital models of the robots have also been tested by NASA in a computer simulation.

This allowed the space agency to replicate the harsh conditions of Europa.

In the simulation, Nasa unleashed a “virtual swarm” of 5-inch versions of the robots.

Nasa says that these swarms could consist of something like a dozen robots, sent “in four to five waves”.

And they’d be able to explore an area as large as three million cubic feet of water, with an approximate battery life of two hours.

The badnewsis that the SWIM bots have already missed a key mission.

Nasa’s Europa Clipper craft launched on October 14, and will probe Jupiter’s moon Europa.

The craft is due to reach Europa in 2030, and will make 49 flybys of the moon.

Nasa says it hopes that the craft will be able to spot signs that the ocean hidden beneath Europa’s icy crust could sustain alien life.

The SWIM robots could then join afuturemission to one of our solar system’s alien moons potentially finding hard evidence of extraterrestrial life.