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EELS Exobiology Extant Life Surveyor For Enceladus

The EELS (Exobiology Extant Life Surveyor) robot is under development by NASA for a mission to Enceladus, a Saturnian moon.


(EELS Exobiology Extant Life Surveyor)

Right now, engineers are only in the prototype phase. But according to a recent NASA statement, EELS is eventually meant to “explore internal terrain structures, assess habitability and ultimately search for evidence of life. It is designed to be adaptable to traverse ocean-world-inspired terrain, fluidized media, enclosed labyrinthian environments and liquids.” It’s also designed to be self-propelled, so that snake-y body will be moving on its own accord.

(Via PopMech.)

Although you might think that robotic eels are as common as can be in science fiction, I actually can't think of any - except for the ones in Susan Beetlestone's 2012 novel Re:Set:

It was a small electronics lab, but I took no note of anything but the Eel. It was about five feet long, a silver flexiprene-covered body like a fat snake, a black bullet head and red camera eyes. I was puzzled that they had it tethered inside a wire cage... The Eel flexed its body, rattling the cage, and moved its head to look directly at me.
(Read more about robotic eels)

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