The Benthic Rover

We’ve heard about rovers exploring the surface of Mars, sending back amazing data that teaches us more about the red planet. How many of us have heard of the Benthic Rover? Developed by the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MABARI), United States, the Benthic Rover operates under water.

It is the only un-tethered, seafloor crawler currently in existence. The autonomous underwater rover operates at Station M. The location is 4,000 meters deep on the flat, muddy seafloor about 220 km away from the coastline of California. It’s pretty much walking around on it’s own taking measurements.

It measures sinking marine snow, basically plankton and faecal matter, as it sinks towards the seafloor. It’s also measured the percentage of carbon that can sink to the seafloor. The amount was much more that scientists previously believed. It has spent 367 days on the seafloor, a huge record for the crawler. It also traveled a record 1.6 km during this period.

This is currently the world record for the longest distance and time spent undersea for any rover. Needless to say a huge amount of data has been collected during this science project which is giving scientists a better understanding of climatic data.