NASA in the future may look for life in the subglacial oceans through many small floating robots.

The Sensing With Independent Micro-Swimmers (SWIM) project involves landing on suitable satellites of the giant planets of the solar system a device that can somehow drill or melt the ice crust, reach the subglacial ocean and launch a swarm of small floating robots there.

So far, the concept implies that the robots will be about 12 cm long with a volume of about 60-75 cm3. About four dozen of them can fit in a cryobot section about 10 centimeters long and 25 centimeters in diameter, taking up about 15% of the science payload. This would leave enough room for more powerful but less mobile scientific instruments that could collect data and make stationary measurements in the ocean.

Now it’s just a concept, but it has already passed the first phase of funding for the NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts program, having received $125,000, and recently the second, where funding has grown to $600,000. The author of the idea is robotics engineer Ethan Schaler from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

Funding for the second phase will allow the author and his team to build and test prototype robots over the next two years to determine how viable the concept as a whole is.

The main idea of ​​the concept is that a swarm of robots will be able to explore a much larger volume of the ocean than a single device, although, of course, due to their size, such robots will not be able to carry many different tools for data analysis.

Unfortunately, even if NASA eventually approves such a concept and starts preparing a mission based on it, it will still be many years before the device is launched and gets to Europa or Enceladus, which are currently the main candidates for such missions. For example, the Europa Clipper mission implies the launch of the device in 2024, and it will reach Europe only in 2030. This mission does not involve landing on the moon of Jupiter, much less trying to drill through the ice.

Motorola has shared some unusual camera data for its upcoming flagship Moto X30 Pro, also known as the Frontier. This is the same device that should be the first in the world to get a 200-megapixel main camera.

Motorola has decided not to disclose the resolution of the other cameras for now, but has shared focal lengths.

As you can see on the poster, we are talking about 35mm, 50mm and 85mm equivalents. This is far from the most standard set for a modern smartphone, but, of course, implementation is more important than dry numbers.

Recall, Moto X30 Pro will receive the latest Samsung ISOCELL HP1 image sensor with a resolution of 200 megapixels. According to rumors, the smartphone will also be equipped with a 144Hz OLED screen and 125W charging.

In China, it is common practice to collect applications for the purchase of goods that have not yet been presented. This reflects the user’s interest in a particular novelty: the fact that he expects to purchase a device without knowing either the exact characteristics or the price speaks volumes. And now on JD.com you can already leave an application for the purchase of the latest Xiaomi flagships – models 12S, 12S Pro and 12S Ultra.

We can say that these smartphones are guaranteed the laurels of local hits: already now, four days before the announcement, 250 thousand applications have been collected for each. Not all of them will be converted into real sales, but it is already clear that the demand is high.

The Mi Band 7 Pro fitness bracelet declassified today is also available for order, but since its page on JD.com appeared later, there have been few purchase orders in this case so far – just over four thousand.