"Smart Dust" to Explore Planets

Ollabelle writes "The BBC is reporting how tiny chips with flexible skins could be used to glide through a planet's atmosphere in swarms to gather data and report back. 'The idea of using millimetre-sized devices to explore far-flung locations is nothing new, but Dr Barker and his colleagues are starting to look in detail at how it might be achieved. The professor at Glasgow's Nanoelectronics Research Centre told delegates at the Royal Astronomical Society gathering that computer chips of the size and sophistication required to meet the challenge already existed.'"

Comments

Goo

[Ajehals]

...tiny chips with flexible skins could be used to glide through a planet's atmosphere in swarms to gather data and report back...

Replace "gather data" with "decimate indigenous life" and "report back" with "multiply exponentially", and you have either a classic horror movie or an Iain Banks novel.

Actually its quite scary either way... grey goo anyone?

Re:Goo

[TheLazySci-FiAuthor]

I can easily replace "decimate indigenous life" with "aid indigenous life" and "multiply exponentially" with "respect nature" and suddenly we have nano-environmentalists.

Do we still have a problem if the goo is green?

Your concerns are valid in general, but this does not strike me as persuasive argument for this particular technological instance.

We can't be content just polluting our own planet?

[KWTm]

So, not being satisfied with having our waste strewn across just our own planet, now we're going to introduce the rest of the solar system to our All-Products-Are-Disposable culture? Or are these micro chip/probes going to clean up after themselves and come back to Earth?

This project is doomed

[Timesprout]

When they get to the Dyson planet in the Hoover nebula.

How did you get modded up

[WindBourne]

Look, even if we deploy 1 million of these spread out on Mars, I doubt that you would even find one if you looked for 10 years. There is more "pollution" (in terms of weight) that comes in via meteorites over a month, then would be in these million. Don't believe it? Then look closely at the moon and Martian surface. Those holes are not there just to look pretty.

Poor Martians

[Tablizer]

First we crash probes into their neighborhoods, then we put skid-marks all over the place with our wheel-dragging rovers, now we aggravate their allergies.