- NASA began testing an alien-hunting underwater rover in Antarctica this week.
- The robot, called the Buoyant Rover for Under-Ice Exploration (BRUIE), rolls along the bottom of ice sheets in polar oceans, scanning for signs of life.
- BRUIE is built for the hidden subsurface seas of distant ice worlds like Europa (a moon of Jupiter) and Enceladus (a moon of Saturn).
- These ocean worlds are the most likely places for alien life in our solar system.
- NASA is designing other spacecraft to search for life in these hidden oceans.
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NASA scientists are dropping an upside-down underwater rover into the icy oceans of Antarctica.
The robot, called the Buoyant Rover for Under-Ice Exploration (BRUIE), is a prototype of the rover that could search for life in frozen alien oceans.
It's part of NASA's plans to explore the secret oceans of two distant icy moons, Europa and Enceladus. NASA plans to launch the next spacecraft to Europa in 2025.
These moons and this underwater rover are our best shot at finding alien life in the solar system.
Here's everything you need to know about the underwater rover, the worlds it could explore, and how NASA plans to search for life there.