91热爆

Space: Nasa 'Shapeshifter' robot could be on its way to Saturn!

shapeshifter-robot.Image source, NASA
Image caption,

The mini robots can come together to form one big robot

Nasa are designing a shapeshifting robot that'll travel to Saturn.

They're hoping to send the new robot to one of Saturn's biggest moons, called Titan.

The robot is called Shapeshifter, and it's formed of lots of mini robots that can roll, fly, float and swim, then morph into a single machine.

Image source, NASA
Image caption,

This is what the robot looks like at the moment

Nasa hope they'll find out more about Titan. It's the only object in the Solar System other than Earth that has liquid on the surface.

The robot explorer is still in the first stages of production but apparently the early tests are looking promising! The prototype can roll around on the ground and split itself in half.

Image source, NASA
Image caption,

This is an artist's impression of how the robot might operate

One of the researches at Nasa said: "We have very limited information about the composition of the surface [of Titan]"

So the experts felt they needed to design a machine that was capable of exploring all the different parts of it and could deal with anything!