Battling choppy waves and high winds, three engineers pulled ashore a yellow submarine in Scotland this week.
With sheets of water pouring from its body, the UK’s most famous robot – Boaty McBoatface – was winched up after 55 days at sea.
“It’s a bit slimy, and ocean smells have seeped in. There’s a few things growing on it,” says Rob Templeton, now dismantling the 3.6m robot in Leverburgh, on the Isle of Harris.
Boaty has completed a more-than-2,000km scientific odyssey from Iceland that could change what we know about the pace of climate change.
It was hunting for marine snow – “poo, basically” in the words of one researcher. This refers to tiny particles that sink to the ocean floor, storing huge amounts of carbon.
The deep ocean, referred to as the “twilight zone”, is enormously mysterious. Acting as the eyes and ears of the scientists, Boaty went there on the longest journey yet for its class of submarine. BBC News had exclusive access to the expedition.
The public originally picked the name Boaty McBoatface for a polar ship in 2016. That didn’t happen, but instead the name was quietly given to a fleet of six identical robots at the National Oceanography Centre in Southampton.
This latest epic trip from Iceland was a major engineering test. “Boaty has absolutely passed. It’s a massive relief,” says Rob.
It has been an around-the-clock operation, with the engineers sending text messages to the robot via satellite. “We tell it dive here, travel there, turn on that sensor,” he says.
It is exciting technology but the science that Boaty was
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