But dont imagine metal humanoids swimming frog-like underwater.

They will probably be simple, triangular wedges.

Plutois one example of a likely ocean world.

NASA strives to send swarms of swimming robots into space

Microbes can feed off this chemical energy, and can in turn be eaten by larger organisms.

No sunlight or atmosphere is actually needed.

A vent on the floor of the northeast Pacific.

Impression showing the cross-section of Europa.

A bed of tube worms feeding on chemosynthetic microbes covers the base.

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This is in contrast to the largely radioactive heating of the Earths interior.

Image of a vent on the Earth’s ocean floor.

But the chemistry of the water-rock interactions is similar.

Conceptual impression, not to scale.

Once there, it would release up to about four dozen 12cm long, wedge-shaped micro-swimmers to go exploring.

Article image

Independent micro-swimmers, deployed from a probe that has penetrated the ice crust of a moon.

The study will trial prototypes in a test tank with all subsystems integrated.

But at this stage, nothing is ruled out.

Artist’s impression of swimming robotic devices.

I think finding signs of hydrothermal vents is a long shot, however.

The ocean floor would, after all, be many kilometres below the micro-swimmers release point.

But, to be fair, pinpointing vents is not explicitly suggested in the Swim proposal.

Artist’s impression of swimming robotic devices, deployed from a probe that has penetrated the ice crust of a moon.

To locate and examine the vents themselves, we probably do need Boaty McBoatface inspace.

That said, Swim would be a good start.

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