To Boldly Go

The hybrid remotely operated vehicle Nereid Under Ice (HROV NUI) returns from a dive to the deck of the icebreaker Polarstern in October of last year. WHOI senior scientist Chris German led a team of scientists and engineers from WHOI’s Deep Submergence Lab and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory to conduct NUI’s first-ever dives to the seafloor beneath 100 percent ice-cover in the Arctic as part of an exploration for seafloor hydrothermal vents. German’s project, funded by NASA, seeks to help inform future exploration for life on other ice-covered ocean worlds—for example, Jupiter’s moon Europa. (Photo by Chris German, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)