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Sentry Away

February 21, 2012

One May 2011 evening in the Gulf of Mexico, engineers readied the autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) Sentry to dive in search of deep-water corals. Scientists aboard the vessel McArthur II were examining the health of the corals and other sea life a year after the April 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill, the largest spill in U.S. history. Sentry swims freely on preprogrammed dives, covering wide swaths of undersea territory on dives that may last a day or more. Researchers also used a digital camera system towed behind the ship, called TowCam, to capture images of the seafloor.(Photo by Dana Yoerger, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)