Sky News looks up to report on NASA’s airiest plans for exploring Jupiter. They’re designing a flock of turbulence-fueled “windbots” – cheap, floating robots to map out the gas giant:
The idea is for the devices to stay aloft by relying on turbulence from a planet’s atmosphere, and the concept is now being developed by space programme scientists.
NASA described the windbots concept 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.”
Differences in wind velocity and strength would allow the windbots to boost their energy.
NASA jet propulsion expert Adrian Stoica said: “It’s a spring of energy a probe could drink from.”
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The concept is modeled on dandelion seeds. The machines, though, look like 20-sided dice.