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We present the novel concept of a combined drilling and melting probe for subsurface ice research. This probe, named “IceMole”, is currently developed, built, and tested at the FH Aachen University of Applied Sciences’ Astronautical Laboratory. Here, we describe its first prototype design and report the results of its field tests on the Swiss Morteratsch glacier. Although the IceMole design is currently adapted to terrestrial glaciers and ice shields, it may later be modified for the subsurface in-situ investigation of extraterrestrial ice, e.g., on Mars, Europa, and Enceladus. If life exists on those bodies, it may be present in the ice (as life can also be found in the deep ice of Earth).
A melting probe equipped with autofluorescence-based detection system combined with a light scattering unit, and, optionally, with a microarray chip would be ideally suited to probe icy environments like Europa’s ice layer as well as the polar ice layers of Earth and Mars for recent and extinct live.
The Saturnian moon Enceladus with its extensive water bodies underneath a thick ice sheet cover is a potential candidate for extraterrestrial life. Direct exploration of such extraterrestrial aquatic ecosystems requires advanced access and sampling technologies with a high level of autonomy. A new technological approach has been developed as part of the collaborative research project Enceladus Explorer (EnEx). The concept is based upon a minimally invasive melting probe called the IceMole. The force-regulated, heater-controlled IceMole is able to travel along a curved trajectory as well as upwards. Hence, it allows maneuvers which may be necessary for obstacle avoidance or target selection. Maneuverability, however, necessitates a sophisticated on-board navigation system capable of autonomous operations. The development of such a navigational system has been the focal part of the EnEx project. The original IceMole has been further developed to include relative positioning based on in-ice attitude determination, acoustic positioning, ultrasonic obstacle and target detection integrated through a high-level sensor fusion. This paper describes the EnEx technology and discusses implications for an actual extraterrestrial mission concept.
The ”IceMole“ is a novel maneuverable subsurface ice probe for clean in-situ analysis and sampling of subsurface ice and subglacial water/brine. It is developed and build at FH Aachen University of Applied Sciences’ Astronautical Laboratory. A first prototype was successfully tested on the Swiss Morteratsch glacier in 2010. Clean sampling is achieved with a hollow ice screw (as it is used in mountaineering) at the tip of the probe. Maneuverability is achieved with a differentially heated melting head. Funded by the German Space Agency (DLR), a consortium led by FH Aachen currently develops a much more advanced IceMole probe, which includes a sophisticated system for obstacle avoidance, target detection, and navigation in the ice. We intend to use this probe for taking clean samples of subglacial brine at the Blood Falls (McMurdo Dry Valleys, East Antarctica) for chemical and microbiological analysis. In our conference contribution, we 1) describe the IceMole design, 2) report the results of the field tests of the first prototype on the Morteratsch glacier, 3) discuss the probe’s potential for the clean in-situ analysis and sampling of subsurface ice and subglacial liquids, and 4) outline the way ahead in the development of this technology.
There is significant interest in sampling subglacial environments for geobiological studies, but they are difficult to access. Existing ice-drilling technologies make it cumbersome to maintain microbiologically clean access for sample acquisition and environmental stewardship of potentially fragile subglacial aquatic ecosystems. The IceMole is a maneuverable subsurface ice probe for clean in situ analysis and sampling of glacial ice and subglacial materials. The design is based on the novel concept of combining melting and mechanical propulsion. It can change melting direction by differential heating of the melting head and optional side-wall heaters. The first two prototypes were successfully tested between 2010 and 2012 on glaciers in Switzerland and Iceland. They demonstrated downward, horizontal and upward melting, as well as curve driving and dirt layer penetration. A more advanced probe is currently under development as part of the Enceladus Explorer (EnEx) project. It offers systems for obstacle avoidance, target detection, and navigation in ice. For the EnEx-IceMole, we will pay particular attention to clean protocols for the sampling of subglacial materials for biogeochemical analysis. We plan to use this probe for clean access into a unique subglacial aquatic environment at Blood Falls, Antarctica, with return of a subglacial brine sample.
The most of conventional methods of air purification use the power of a fan to draw in air and pass it through a filter. The problem of bacterial contamination of inner parts of such a type of air conditioners in some cases draws attention towards alternative air-cleaning systems. Some manufacturers offer to use the ozone's bactericidal and deodorizing effects, but the wide spreading of such systems is restricted by the fact that toxic effects of ozone in respect of human beings are well known. In 2000 Sharp Inc. introduced "Plasma Cluster Ions (PCI)" air purification technology, which uses plasma discharge to generate cluster ions (I 0-14 ). This technology has been developed for those customers that are conscious about health and hygiene. In our experiments, we focused on some principal aspects of plasma-generated ions application - time-dependency and irreversibility of bactericidal action, spatial and kinetic characteristics of emitted cluster particles, their chemical targets in the microbial cells.
As a deduction from these results, we can conclude that proteins mainly in vitro, denaturate totally at a temperature between 57°C -62°C, and they also affected by NO and different ions types. In which mainly, NO cause earlier protein denaturation, which means that, NO has a destabilizing effect on proteins, and also different ions will alter the protein denaturation in which, some ions will cause earlier protein denaturation while others not.
Thermodynamic stability, configurational motions and internal forces of haemoglobin (Hb) of three endotherms (platypus, Ornithorhynchus anatinus; domestic chicken, Gallus gallus domesticus and human, Homo sapiens) and an ectotherm (salt water crocodile, Crocodylus porosus) were investigated using circular dichroism, incoherent elastic neutron scattering and coarse-grained Brownian dynamics simulations. The experimental results from Hb solutions revealed a direct correlation between protein resilience, melting temperature and average body temperature of the different species on the 0.1 ns time scale. Molecular forces appeared to be adapted to permit conformational fluctuations with a root mean square displacement close to 1.2 Å at the corresponding average body temperature of the endotherms. Strong forces within crocodile Hb maintain the amplitudes of motion within a narrow limit over the entire temperature range in which the animal lives. In fully hydrated powder samples of human and chicken, Hb mean square displacements and effective force constants on the 1 ns time scale showed no differences over the whole temperature range from 10 to 300 K, in contrast to the solution case. A complementary result of the study, therefore, is that one hydration layer is not sufficient to activate all conformational fluctuations of Hb in the pico- to nanosecond time scale which might be relevant for biological function. Coarse-grained Brownian dynamics simulations permitted to explore residue-specific effects. They indicated that temperature sensing of human and chicken Hb occurs mainly at residues lining internal cavities in the β-subunits.