“Green” guts

Take a look at the guts inside a “green”-powered thermal glider, and you’ll find bundles of wires, but no motor to propel it. As Research Associate John Lund (in photo) of the Autonomous Systems Laboratory, a division of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Physical Oceanography Department, will tell you, the robot vehicle harvests the heat energy of the ocean itself to move through the sea. Innovative thermal gliders, capable of sensing ocean properties and transmitting data to shore, are profiled in the most recent issue of Oceanus, the WHOI online and print magazine.
(Photo by David Fratantoni, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)