The finalists in a $ 7 - million challenger to map the sea flooring have been announced , along with the location the competition will take place .
The Shell Ocean Discovery XPRIZE , announcedback in 2015 , is the latest competition from the XPRIZE foundation , which seeks to advance innovation in finicky fields by awarding booty money to team to tackle a finical finish . premature contest have includedbuilding a quad planeand developing aStar Trek - expressive style tricorder .
In this a la mode competition , teams were task with work up self-governing submarine submersibles that can represent the sea base remotely . The vehicles must be launched from the shoring , traveling to a exceptional location by water or aura with limited input from humans .
The competition will start in early November , running through to December . Each squad will be task with mathematical function a section of the seafloor off the coast of Kalamata in Greece , which has now been announced as the fix .
Each of the eight finalist squad will have 24 hours to map at least 250 square kilometre ( 100 square geographical mile ) of the sea floor at profundity down to 4,000 meters ( 13,000 feet ) , twice as mysterious as the Grand Canyon . The map must have a resolution of at least 5 meters ( 16 human foot ) , and they must name and find at least 10 archeological , biological , or geological feature of speech .
“ The Shell Ocean Discovery XPRIZE compete team are produce breakthrough engineering plan to operate in extreme stipulation , with the goal of rapidly mapping an area that has not antecedently been mapped at such mellow resolution , ” XPRIZE ’s Dr Jyotika Virmani , who is lead this contest , said in astatement .
“ We are providing the teams with an environs that is full of mystery and geological features that will offer a true test of their technologies . ”
The team will be score on how well they map out the ocean storey . The squad that performs well will get a $ 4 million prize , while 2nd place will be awarded $ 1 million .
This loot will have other immediate benefits too . The data point produced by the squad will be used by for a project screw asKM3NeT , a neutrino sensor that will apply K of sensors on the ocean floor by 2025 to observe incoming cosmic rays .
The goal of the Ocean XPRIZE is not just to race to map out a small-scale incision of the seafloor , though . XPRIZE hopes the competition will spur advances in sea mathematical function ; despite track two - third base of our satellite , we ’ve only explore about 5 percent of our sea so far .
