My young-YA/middle-grade fantasy Fireboy, a nominee for Best Young Adult Novel in this year’s Aurora Awards, is also a finalist for the 2027 Manitoba Young Readers’ Choice Award in the Northern Lights Division. This is …
I’m thrilled to announce that I’m up for two Aurora Awards this year! Fireboy is on the ballot for Best Young Adult Novel, and The Worldshapers is once again on the ballot for Best Fan …
I spent a good chunk of today at Wordbridge, the annual writers’ conference in Lethbridge, Alberta. My main reason for coming was to launch a Shadowpaw Press title (Broken Realm by Jenna Greene, a Lethbridge …
This is Easter weekend; last weekend, I sang in the Easter concert of First Baptist Church here in Regina as a guest soloist and chorister. The whole concert is worth listening to, but if you’d …
I put a link to this in the previous post on my Aurora-eligible work for 2025, but wanted to highlight it. This was my contribution to the Shapers of Worlds Volume V anthology, and it …
The Aurora Awards are Canada’s best-known science fiction and fantasy awards, voted on by fans every year. I’ve been fortunate enough to win twice, for Marseguro (DAW Books) (soon coming out in a new edition from Tuscany …
Previous
Next
Robotic sub to explore sinkhole
NASA is sending an Autonomous Underwater Vehicle–a.k.a. a robotic sub–to explore the world’s deepest sinkhole:
Like La Pilita, Zacatón is in the Mexican state of Tamaulipas and was formed by the collapse of a limestone chamber dissolved by warm, acidic groundwater that originated in a nearby volcanic region. The current theory is that the cenote formed under a vast travertine bed like that of Mammoth Hot Springs in Yellowstone National Park. But no one knows how deep Zacatón goes. Human divers, descending far below safe depths, have made it to 282 meters without reaching bottom. Sonar doesn’t work over long distances in the confines of the cenote, and current measurements peter out at around 270 meters.
Why NASA? The space agency hopes similar devices may one day explore the oceans believed to be lurking beneath the icy crust of Jupiter’s moon Europa.
Plus, it’s just a really cool thing to do.
Permanent link to this article: https://edwardwillett.com/2007/03/robotic-sub-to-explore-sinkhole/
