WHOI Deep-Sea Hybrid Vehicle Nereus
Nereus, a mythical god with a fish tail and a man’s torso, was chosen as the name of a new deep-sea vehicle under construction at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI). The vehicle will be able to work in the deepest parts of the ocean, from 6,500 metres to 11,000 metres, a depth currently unreachable for routine ocean research. Scientists also plan to use it to explore remote, difficult-to-reach areas, including under the Arctic ice cap. Nereus can be transformed from a free-swimming vehicle for wide-area ocean surveys to a vehicle tethered by a cable to a surface ship for close-up investigation and sampling of seafloor rocks and organisms. The $5-million, battery-operated vehicle will be the first ever designed to transform from a guided, tethered robot to a free-swimming vehicle. Nereus keeps with a tradition in the WHOI Deep Submergence Laboratory of naming vehicles for mythical Greek figures.