Researchers recently launched the first autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV), which will cross the Gulf Stream and arrive in Bermuda nearly 600 miles away. Launched 100 miles south of Nantucket, MA, the torpedo-shaped craft is said to validate researchers' assertions that self-propelled, robo-scientific gliders can plumb extreme ocean depths for information during long-distance missions. The AUV has been churning its way toward Bermuda, at about half a mile an hour, taking various readings of the ocean environment and rising to the surface to transmit data back to the base station. The mission sounds like a giant step for oceanographers, but we're wondering if the craft happened to spot the camera we accidentally dropped from the Hyannis to Nantucket ferry in 1995. We loved that camera — maybe we should give them a call.
Robot cross the Gulf Stream underwater [We Make Money Not Art]
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