In northeastern California lies a collection of caves that shaped 1000’s of years in the past when volcanoes erupted lava that later solidified, abandoning tunnels huge sufficient for people to stroll by way of. However Earth is not the one planet in our photo voltaic system with volcanoes — extraterrestrial caves shaped all throughout the photo voltaic system.
Take Mars, for example. Hundreds of thousands of years earlier than life on Earth got here to be, volcanoes erupted on the Pink Planet, too. Martian volcanoes seem like dormant proper now, however that former exercise left behind the biggest tunnel community within the photo voltaic system. The ensuing lava tubes stretch over 820 ft (250 meters) throughout, greater than eight occasions the width of California’s tunnels. To date, researchers have found tube programs on Mars reaching over 746 miles (1,200 kilometers), sufficient to cowl the continental United States thrice over. Plus, scientists assume extra tunnels are but to be found.
However to be able to perceive how huge the community is, scientists are pushing on the limits of house exploration. Considered one of these scientists suggests the thought of “dandelion drones.”
At current, our Mars exploration efforts have been fairly closely primarily based round rovers, like Curiosity and Perseverance. However, as pioneering as these robotic vehicles are, they’re reaching their limitations when it comes to lava tubes.
“The rovers are the size of a school bus,” Mostafa Hassanalian, associated professor at New Mexico Tech, told Space.com. “That’s why they can’t get in.”
The atmosphere of Mars is also unforgiving, meaning winds of up to 60 miles per hour (97 kilometers per hour) can battery these explorers, and have even torn chunks out of Curiosity rover across the years.
What’s a dandelion drone?
Hassanalian’s drones are designed on the idea of biomimicry: the concept that robotics should copy what we observe in nature instead of reinventing what nature already succeeds in doing.
Biomimicry often fails when the design is too large, Hassanalian says, but is most efficient on the microscale. “There’s a reason airplanes don’t flap,” he explained.
For example, the dandelion drone concept begins with another kind of robot Hassanalian and his team designed called the “roly-poly robot,” based on a pillbug, which rolls up into a ball when threatened. The idea is to deploy a pillbug drone through a hole in the roof of a cave, equipping it with a parachute to allow it to drift down to the cave floor. This roly-poly robot will be holding thousands of small drones, or dandelion drones, within.
The pillbug robot will then release all of those thousands of drones in the cave, with the dandelion robots being propelled by Mars’ strong winds for miles upon miles and mapping out the tunnels as they fly.
However, one hurdle will be making sure there is enough wind to carry the dandelion drones. Because nothing human-made has ever entered Martian lava tubes, scientists aren’t exactly sure how strong the winds will be. A lack of wind would pose a problem.
But many researchers think the holes in the cave system ceiling will ventilate the tunnels, making them very windy. Plus, the robot comes equipped with a high-powered fan, in case the wind isn’t strong enough or dies down.
Another complication the team must think about is the fact that sunlight can’t enter the cave, so solar panels — the most common source of powering a spacecraft — won’t work. Instead, Hassanalian has designed the dandelion drones to work with piezoelectricity, made from a flexible polymer which generates an electric charge.
During the design phase, the team also realized that air-propelled seeds in nature are usually white because they reflect more sunlight, keeping them cooler and lighter. They thus plan to paint the dandelion drones white to let them travel further.
Once in the air, the dandelion drones would transmit data via radio signals, collecting readings on humidity, temperature and eventually creating a blueprint of the entire tunnel system.
A race to the tunnels
Hassanalian’s isn’t the only team looking at lava-tube exploration. In a series of tests beginning in 2023, a bunch of European scientists led by the House Robotics Laboratory on the College of Malaga dropped robots into lava tubes discovered on an island in Spain referred to as Lanzarote to be able to map out the tunnel system in preparation for a attainable future Mars mission.
NASA has additionally made 72 flights utilizing the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter throughout the planet’s floor, proving the potential for additional exploration. However this drone was designed to fly within the open air, and by no means obtained an opportunity to enterprise into the lava tubes earlier than in the end meeting its demise in 2024.
Drone plans developed by NASA recommend the house company is especially concerned with Arsia Mons, a protect volcano in Mars’ Tharsis area, which incorporates the biggest volcanoes within the photo voltaic system, resembling Olympus Mons — virtually thrice as excessive as Mount Everest.
The Tharsis area alone is the dimensions of the dwarf planet Ceres. When the bulge shaped, it added a lot mass that Mars is assumed to have tilted roughly 20 levels. The precise cause why is debated by scientists, however theories embrace an enormous collision in early Martian historical past, or unstable mantle plumes.
The Arsia Mons volcano is of specific curiosity to NASA as a result of the company noticed holes within the protect the place the volcanic ceiling had collapsed, leaving skylights behind and revealing an unlimited tunnel community inside.
Thermal readings taken from the volcanic holes instructed that the temperature inside wasn’t altering as drastically because the floor, thrilling hopes that people may in the future inside, and even the concept that life native to Mars had survived inside.
NASA can also be eyeing up potential caves on Titan, Saturn’s largest moon, deciding on Johns Hopkins’ “Dragonfly” spacecraft to discover the floor.
People aren’t imagined to land on the planet till the 2030s on the very earliest. When that day lastly comes, drone scouting may show very important for humanity’s long-term survival on Mars.