On an Arctic island 3,000 kilometres north of the nearest city, scientists tested a drill this May that could one day open the next chapter in space exploration the quest to discover what lies beneath the surface of the moon and Mars.
Working on the side of a sweeping fiord near the Eureka weather station half-way up Ellesmere Island, the nine researchers from NASA and McGill University bored two metres into a sandstone outcropping with a specialized drill that uses only a lightbulb’s worth of power.