Scientists return this week to the world’s deepest known sinkhole for tests of a NASA-funded robot called DEPTHX, designed to survey and explore for life in one of Earth’s most extreme regions and potentially in outer space. DEPTHX’s technology could aid future space probes of Jupiter’s moon Europa, where scientists believe that deep cracks and holes in the ice offer a chance of finding extraterrestrial life.

http://news.utexas.edu/2007/03/07/jsg