Robotic Glider and Barnacles

Scientists met the robotic glider Scarlet Knight about halfway along its journey of scientific exploration from the United States to Spain, discovering that barnacles were growing on the glider’s body, as this graphic illustrates. As algae began to grow on the glider’s exterior surface, small sea creatures attached, attracting larger ocean predators that could damage the glider. Scarlet Knight is the first underwater robotic glider to complete a trans-Atlantic mission.