Shape Shifting Robot Can Reassemble After Crashing Apart
It’s fairly certain that the Mars Polar Lander and the Beagle lander crash landed on Mars, never to be heard from again. Well, what if crash landing was no problem? What if a robotic spacecraft could just reassemble and fix itself if there was a mishap on the way to another planet’s surface? That type of science fiction is getting closer to reality. A group of researchers from the University of Pennsylvania have developed a robot made of separate modules that can recognize each other and reassemble itself if they crash or get kicked apart. Maybe this could solve the problems of landing on Mars!
Except we haven’t figured out how to reassemble people, yet.
Take a look a the video. It’s pretty remarkable, although I have to admit, I had visions of the Terminator after watching it….
Original News Source: New Scientist
Recent Posts
We Understand Rotating Black Holes Even Less Than We Thought
The theory of black holes has several mathematical oddities. Recent research shows our understanding of…
Habitable Worlds are Found in Safe Places
When we think of exoplanets that may be able to support life, we hone in…
New Glenn Booster Moves to Launch Complex 36
Nine years ago, Blue Origin revealed the plans for their New Glenn rocket, a heavy-lift…
How Many Additional Exoplanets are in Known Systems?
NASA's TESS mission has turned up thousands of exoplanet candidates in almost as many different…
Hubble and Webb are the Dream Team. Don't Break Them Up
Many people think of the James Webb Space Telescope as a sort of Hubble 2.…
Scientists Have Figured out why Martian Soil is so Crusty
On November 26th, 2018, NASA's Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy, and Heat Transport (InSight)…