Icefin is a robotic vehicle, similar to an uncrewed submarine, that was deployed in the depths of Antarctica. The readings taken show how climatic conditions affect the ice and the different organisms that inhabit the deep ocean.
A team of scientists and engineers from the Georgia Institute of Technology assembled a robotic vehicle, similar to an uncrewed submarine, in Antarctica. The vehicle called Icefin was deployed through a twelve-inch diameter hole through twenty meters of ice and another five hundred meters of water to the seafloor. The goal of Icefin is to measure the conditions of the ocean under the ice. The readings taken under Antarctic ice shelves, along with the video recorded in these harsh conditions, helped understand how the ice is changing under warming conditions, and how organisms develop in cold, dark environments.
The biologists were amazed to see the amount of life in that place, which included starfish, sponges, and anemones on the seafloor. It is worth noting that the Antarctic Ocean can be as deep as five thousand meters. Icefin is capable of diving to fifteen hundred meters and can conduct research over three kilometers long. Earlier vehicles of this same class were limited to a few hundred meters. The technologies developed for Icefin will also help in the search for life on other planets, such as Europa, Jupiter's moon. The frozen ocean of Antarctica is remarkably similar to the ocean on that satellite.
Britney Schmidt, professor at the School of Earth Sciences and principal investigator for the Icefin project, is satisfied with the understanding of the ocean system achieved in Antarctica, as it allows progress on the hypotheses needed to investigate Europa. The project was funded by NASA and supported by the NSF (National Science Foundation), with Schmidt as principal investigator. For now, it is already planned that Icefin will make its debut in the Arctic Ocean in mid-2016, with a return to Antarctica at the end of the same year.
