Nasa has successfully trialled of a new type of underwater drone which seems to suggest one way it might attempt to explore under the ice of Saturn's moon Titan.
The rover is designed to float underneath a sheet of ice and drive around in the liquid (or perhaps water) below.
Nasa said it's the first time that an untethered drone has been controlled under ice by satellite link.
The drone might also be considered for future moons to explore Jupiter's moon Europa, often considered the best chance for finding life in our solar system.
PICS: Space Is Incredible
Europa(01 of41)
The icy surface of Europa is shown strewn with cracks, ridges and "chaotic terrain," where the surface has been disrupted and ice blocks have moved around. New laboratory experiments show that water ice and frozen sulfur dioxide react even at the frigid temperatures of Europa. Because the reaction occurs without the aid of radiation, it could take place throughout the moon's thick ice layer—an outcome that would revamp current thinking about the chemistry and geology of this moon and perhaps others. (credit:NASA/JPL/University of Arizona)
Venus(02 of41)
Unlike Earth, Venus lacks a magnetic field to deflect powerful solar outbursts -- as can be seen in this NASA-created image, a still from the video "Dynamic Earth: Exploring Earth's Climate Engine." (credit:NASA)
Saturn's Storm(03 of41)
This vertigo-inducing, false-color image from NASA's Cassini mission highlights the storms at Saturn's north pole. The angry eye of a hurricane-like storm appears dark red while the fast-moving hexagonal jet stream framing it is a yellowish green. Low-lying clouds circling inside the hexagonal feature appear as muted orange color. A second, smaller vortex pops out in teal at the lower right of the image. The rings of Saturn appear in vivid blue at the top right. (credit:NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI)
Carina Nebula(04 of41)
This Hubble photo is of a small portion of a large star-birthing region in the Carina Nebula. Towers of cool hydrogen laced with dust rise from the wall of the nebula. (credit:NASA)
Gas Falling Into A Black Hole(05 of41)
This computer simulation shows gas from a tidally shredded star falling into a black hole. Some of the gas also is being ejected at high speed into space. (credit:NASA; S. Gezari, The Johns Hopkins University; and J. Guillochon, University of California, Santa Cruz)
'Black Marble'(06 of41)
This image of Asia and Australia at night is a composite assembled from data acquired by the Suomi NPP satellite in April and October 2012. (credit:NASA Earth Observatory)
Ring Nebula(07 of41)
In this composite image, visible-light observations by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope are combined with infrared data from the ground-based Large Binocular Telescope in Arizona to assemble a dramatic view of the well-known Ring Nebula. (credit:NASA, ESA, C.R. Robert O’Dell (Vanderbilt University), G.J. Ferland (University of Kentucky), W.J. Henney and M. Peimbert (National Autonomous University of Mexico) Credit for Large Binocular Telescope data: David Thompson (University of Arizona))
Supernova Remnant(08 of41)
A delicate ribbon of gas floats eerily in our galaxy. A contrail from an alien spaceship? A jet from a black-hole? Actually this image, taken by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, is a thin section of a supernova remnant caused by a stellar explosion that occurred more than 1,000 years ago. (credit:Credit: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA) Acknowledgment: W. Blair (Johns Hopkins University))
Jupiter and Ganymede(09 of41)
NASA's Hubble Space Telescope caught Jupiter's moon Ganymede playing a game of "peek-a-boo." In this crisp image, Ganymede is shown just before it ducks behind the giant planet. (credit:NASA, ESA, and E. Karkoschka (University of Arizona))
Crab Nebula(10 of41)
The Crab Nebula is a supernova remnant, all that remains of a tremendous stellar explosion. Observers in China and Japan recorded the supernova nearly 1,000 years ago, in 1054. (credit:NASA, ESA, J. Hester and A. Loll (Arizona State University))
Lagoon Nebula(11 of41)
A spectacular NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image reveals the heart of the Lagoon Nebula. Seen as a massive cloud of glowing dust and gas, bombarded by the energetic radiation of new stars, this placid name hides a dramatic reality. (credit:NASA, ESA)
Mercury(12 of41)
This colorful view of Mercury was produced by using images from the color base map imaging campaign during the spacecraft MESSENGER's primary mission. The colors are not what Mercury would look like to the human eye, but rather the colors enhance the chemical, mineralogical, and physical differences between the rocks that make up Mercury's surface. (credit:NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington )
Cat's Eye Nebula(13 of41)
The Cat's Eye Nebula, one of the first planetary nebulae discovered, also has one of the most complex forms known to this kind of nebula. Eleven rings, or shells, of gas make up the Cat's Eye. Each 'ring' is actually the edge of a spherical bubble seen projected onto the sky -- that's why it appears bright along its outer edge. (credit:NASA, ESA, HEIC, and The Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA) Acknowledgment: R. Corradi (Isaac Newton Group of Telescopes, Spain) and Z. Tsvetanov (NASA))
Spiral Galaxy(14 of41)
The vibrant magentas and blues in this Hubble image of the barred spiral galaxy M83 reveal that the galaxy is ablaze with star formation. Also known as the Southern Pinwheel, the galaxy lies 15 million light-years away in the constellation Hydra. (credit:NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA) Acknowledgement: W. Blair (STScI/Johns Hopkins University) and R. O'Connell (University of Virginia))
Aurora(15 of41)
Swirls of green and red appear in an aurora over Whitehorse, Yukon on the night of September 3, 2012. The aurora was due to a coronal mass ejection from the sun, which erupted on August 31. (credit:Courtesy of David Cartier, Sr.)
Eta Carinae(16 of41)
NASA's Hubble Telescope captured an image of the binary star system Eta Carinae. This image consists of ultraviolet and visible light images from the High Resolution Channel of Hubble's Advanced Camera for Surveys. (credit: ESA/NASA)
Saturn's Moons(17 of41)
Saturn's orange moon Titan peeks from behind two of Saturn's rings. Small, battered Epimetheus, another of Saturn's 62 moons, appears just above the rings. (credit:NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute)
Saturn's Auroras(18 of41)
Scientists first observed Saturn’s auroras in 1979. Decades later, these shimmering ribbons of light still fascinate. For one thing they’re magnificently tall, rising hundreds of miles above the planet’s poles. And unlike on Earth, where bright displays fizzle after only a few hours, auroras on Saturn can shine for days. Auroras are produced when speeding particles accelerated by the sun’s energy collide with gases in a planet’s atmosphere. The gases fluoresce, emitting flashes of light at different wavelengths. (credit:NASA)
'Star Formation Laboratory'(19 of41)
The dwarf galaxy NGC 4214 is ablaze with young stars and gas clouds. Located around 10 million light-years away in the constellation of Canes Venatici (The Hunting Dogs), the galaxy's close proximity, combined with the wide variety of evolutionary stages among the stars, make it an ideal laboratory to research the triggers of star formation and evolution. (credit:NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage (STScI/AURA)-ESA/Hubble Collaboration)
Red Dwarf Star(20 of41)
Artist's depiction of the powerful flare that erupted from the red dwarf star EV Lacertae in 2008. (credit:Casey Reed/NASA)
Coronal Mass Ejection(21 of41)
On August 31, 2012 a long filament of solar material that had been hovering in the sun's atmosphere, the corona, erupted out into space. The coronal mass ejection, or CME, traveled at over 900 miles per second. The CME did not travel directly toward Earth, but did connect with Earth's magnetic environment, or magnetosphere, causing auroras to appear on the night of Monday, September 3. (credit:NASA/GSFC/SDO)
Centaurus A(22 of41)
Resembling looming rain clouds on a stormy day, dark lanes of dust crisscross the giant elliptical galaxy Centaurus A. Hubble's panchromatic vision, stretching from ultraviolet through near-infrared wavelengths, reveals the vibrant glow of young, blue star clusters and a glimpse into regions normally obscured by the dust. (credit:NASA/Cheryl Gundy, STSCI)
Andromeda Galaxy(23 of41)
This mosaic of M31 merges 330 individual images taken by the Ultraviolet/Optical Telescope aboard NASA's Swift spacecraft. It is the highest-resolution image of the galaxy ever recorded in the ultraviolet. (credit:NASA/Swift/Stefan Immler (GSFC) and Erin Grand (UMCP))
Mickey Mouse On Mercury?(24 of41)
This scene is to the northwest of the crater Magritte, in Mercury's south. The image is not map projected; the larger crater actually sits to the north of the two smaller ones. The shadowing helps define the striking "Mickey Mouse" resemblance, created by the accumulation of craters over Mercury's long geologic history. (credit:NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington)
Aurora From Space(25 of41)
From space, the aurora is a crown of light that circles each of Earth’s poles. The IMAGE satellite captured this view of the aurora australis (southern lights) on September 11, 2005, four days after a record-setting solar flare sent plasma—an ionized gas of protons and electrons—flying towards the Earth. The ring of light that the solar storm generated over Antarctica glows green in the ultraviolet part of the spectrum, shown in this image. From the Earth’s surface, the ring would appear as a curtain of light shimmering across the night sky. (credit:NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio)
Daybreak On Mars(26 of41)
This computer-generated view depicts part of Mars at the boundary between darkness and daylight. Gale Crater looms in the distance, distinguished from adjacent craters by its central mountain of strata. Gale Crater straddles the dichotomy boundary of Mars, which separates the broad, flat, and young northern plains from the much older and rougher southern highlands. (credit:NASA/JPL-Caltech)
Saturn(27 of41)
As Saturn's rings orbit the planet, a section is typically in the planet's shadow, experiencing a brief night lasting from 6 to 14 hours. However, about once every 15 years, night falls over the entire visible ring system for about four days. This happens during Saturn's equinox, when the sun is directly over the planet's equator. At this time, the rings, which also orbit directly over the planet's equator, appear edge-on to the sun. During equinox, light from the sun hits the ring particles at very low angles, accenting their topography and giving us a three-dimensional view of the rings. (credit:NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute)
Jupiter(28 of41)
New red spot appears on Jupiter. (credit:M. Wong and I. de Pater (University of California, Berkeley))
Cygnus X(29 of41)
Cygnus X hosts many young stellar groupings. The combined outflows and ultraviolet radiation from the region's numerous massive stars have heated and pushed gas away from the clusters, producing cavities of hot, lower-density gas. In this infrared image, ridges of denser gas mark the boundaries of the cavities. Bright spots within these ridges show where stars are forming. (credit:NASA/IPAC/MSX)
Spiral Galaxy(30 of41)
The Hubble Space Telescope revealed this majestic disk of stars and dust lanes in this view of the spiral galaxy NGC 2841. A bright cusp of starlight marks the galaxy's center. Spiraling outward are dust lanes that are silhouetted against the population of whitish middle-aged stars. Much younger blue stars trace the spiral arms. (credit:NASA)
Horsehead Nebula(31 of41)
Astronomers have used NASA's Hubble Space Telescope to photograph the iconic Horsehead Nebula in a new, infrared light to mark the 23rd anniversary of the famous observatory's launch aboard the space shuttle Discovery on April 24, 1990.
Planetary Nebula(32 of41)
This planetary nebula's simple, graceful appearance is thought to be due to perspective: our view from Earth looking straight into what is actually a barrel-shaped cloud of gas shrugged off by a dying central star. Hot blue gas near the energizing central star gives way to progressively cooler green and yellow gas at greater distances with the coolest red gas along the outer boundary.
Hubble Images Searchlight Beams from a Preplanetary Nebula(33 of41)
The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has been at the cutting edge of research into what happens to stars like our sun at the ends of their lives. One stage that stars pass through as they run out of nuclear fuel is called the preplanetary or protoplanetary nebula stage. This Hubble image of the Egg Nebula shows one of the best views to date of this brief but dramatic phase in a star’s life
Dying Star (34 of41)
A Dying Star Shrouded by a Blanket of Hailstones Forms the Bug Nebula (NGC 6302)
Colossal Glow(35 of41)
Saturn’s auroras put on a dazzling display of light. Scientists first observed Saturn’s auroras in 1979. Decades later, these shimmering ribbons of light still fascinate. For one thing they’re magnificently tall, rising hundreds of miles above the planet’s poles. And unlike on Earth where bright displays fizzle after only a few hours, auroras on Saturn can shine for days. Auroras are produced when speeding particles accelerated by the sun’s energy collide with gases in a planet’s atmosphere. The gases fluoresce, emitting flashes of light at different wavelengths. Watch the video (1.usa.gov/IFW5o7) to see an edge-on view of Saturn’s northern and southern lights courtesy of NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope.
Supermoon(36 of41)
Up there in the sky – it's not a bird or a plane; it's a "Supermoon." Bigger and brighter then normal full moons, the supermoon on June 22/23 will be the closest and largest full moon for all of 2013. The moon will be some 29,000 miles closer to Earth than the farthest point in its orbit, but not to worry the moon will still be more than 221,000 miles away from our blue planet.
Hubble Sees Stars and a Stripe in Celestial Fireworks(37 of41)
This image is a composite of visible (or optical), radio, and X-ray data of the full shell of the supernova remnant from SN 1006. The radio data show much of the extent that the X-ray image shows. In contrast, only a small linear filament in the northwest corner of the shell is visible in the optical data. The object has an angular size of roughly 30 arcminutes (0.5 degree, or about the size of the full moon), and a physical size of 60 light-years (18 parsecs) based on its distance of nearly 7,000 light-years. The small green box along the bright filament at the top of the image corresponds to the dimensions of the Hubble release image.
NASA's Hubble Shows Milky Way is Destined for Head-On Collision(38 of41)
This illustration shows a stage in the predicted merger between our Milky Way galaxy and the neighboring Andromeda galaxy, as it will unfold over the next several billion years. In this image, representing Earth's night sky in 3.75 billion years, Andromeda (left) fills the field of view and begins to distort the Milky Way with tidal pull.
New Supernova Remnant Light Up(39 of41)
Astronomers using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope are witnessing the unprecedented transition of a supernova to a supernova remnant, where light from an exploding star in a neighboring galaxy, the Large Magellanic Cloud, reached Earth in February 1987. Named Supernova 1987A, it was the closest supernova explosion witnessed in almost 400 years.
Aurora Australis from Space(40 of41)
From space, the aurora is a crown of light that circles each of Earth’s poles. The IMAGE satellite captured this view of the aurora australis (southern lights) on September 11, 2005, four days after a record-setting solar flare sent plasma—an ionized gas of protons and electrons—flying towards the Earth. The ring of light that the solar storm generated over Antarctica glows green in the ultraviolet part of the spectrum, shown in this image. The IMAGE observations of the aurora are overlaid onto NASA’s satellite-based Blue Marble image. From the Earth’s surface, the ring would appear as a curtain of light shimmering across the night sky.
Daybreak at Gale Crater(41 of41)
The Curiosity rover bristles with multiple cameras and instruments, including Goddard's Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) instrument suite. By looking for evidence of water, carbon, and other important building blocks of life in the Martian soil and atmosphere, SAM will help discover whether Mars ever had the potential to support life. Curiosity will be delivered to Gale crater, a 96-mile-wide crater that contains a record of environmental changes in its sedimentary rock, in August 2012.