Rubber ducks keep NASA guessing
The American space agency NASA has made an appeal for public help with one of its stranger experiments.
It wants information on the fate of 90 rubber ducks deployed on a special mission to pinpoint where melt waters go under the Greenland ice shelf in summer months.
The bathroom toys were put into one of the crevasses which drain vast amounts of Greenland's melt waters in the hope they would pop out eventually and reveal the route taken by the water.
Nothing has been seen or heard of the ducks since.
- BBC
Sunday, December 21, 2008
Where's My Duckie?
From the ABC:
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Sorry, I refuse to give up my bath tub buddy.
ReplyDeletea small microchip for GPS would make sense, but then we are talking about a government agency.
ReplyDeleteI think I heard about this experiment. Why would they not outfit the rubber ducks with a transmitter of some sort?
ReplyDeleteNASA wouldn't have any expertise for tracking objects would they?The experiment really shows how little we know about the earth, doesn't it?
ReplyDeleteThey did also send one device with some tracking or communication ability but haven't heard from it either. I suspect being deep under that much ice and water would inhibit the weak signal that can be sent by battery (remember it has to last a long time), so it's unlikely to be located until it surfaces somewhere. If it surfaces.
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