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DepthX robotic submarine maps world's deepest sinkhole
After the recent streak of robotic failures that we've seen, it's refreshing to see yet another success story come our way. Just as it did in February, the two-meter wide DepthX (Deep Phreatic Thermal Explorer) robotic submarine successfully mapped out a massive sinkhole in Mexico, but this time was quite a bit more rewarding. The cavern that it ventured into was the El Zacatón Cenote, which is better known as the world's deepest water-filled sinkhole, and the machine was able to delve some 270-meters down to "create the first map of the giant cavity." The hole itself is large enough to "swallow New York's Chrysler Building," and while the endeavor was indeed a success, researchers are hoping to get it back down there in the near future to better analyze a mysterious slope that it wasn't quite able to probe. Godspeed, DepthX.[Via Slashdot]
DepthX robot submarine passes first test
As Popular Science reports, inventor/spelunker Bill Stone's DepthX robot submarine recently underwent its first successful test in Mexico's La Pilita underwater cave, which Stone hopes is only the first step on the bot's way to exploring Jupiter's ice-covered moon, Europa. After a slight delay with some suspicious border guards, the robot quickly got to work on its initial field test, diving some 300 feet down into the cave system, collecting samples, capturing images, and building a 3D map of the area. As the video after the break shows, the robot is definitely built to impress, with some decidedly sci-fi sounding sound effects adding the perfect final touch. According to Popular Science, DepthX will undergo another field test next month, to be followed by a considerably bigger challenge in May, when it'll dive more than 1,000 feet into the Zacaton, the world's deepest sinkhole.[Via Slash Gear]
