Narender - Exploration

If you happen to spot a rubber duckie floating in the ocean, NASA would really appreciate it if you give them a call. They’re missing about 90 of them and want them back.

The rubber duckies were tossed into a hole in Greenland’s ice three months ago as a way to track how the polar icecap is melting. So far, however, they haven’t seen signs of any of them. So now they’re hoping that sailors, fisherman and cruise passengers will keep their eyes peeled for them. For the first one that’s recovered, NASA is offering up a measly $100 reward. But hey, that’s $100 more than you had before, you crusty old arctic fisherman. And it’s for science.

Sailors, fishermen and cruise passengers should be on the alert. If anybody spots a yellow rubber duck bobbing on the ocean waves, Nasa would like to know.

The US space agency has yet to find any trace of 90 bathtub toys that were dropped through holes in Greenland’s ice three months ago in an effort to track the way the Arctic icecap is melting. Scientists threw the ducks into tubular holes known as “moulins” in the Jakobshavn glacier on Greenland’s west coast, hoping they would find their way into channels beneath the hard-packed surface, to track the flow of melt water into the ocean.

“We haven’t heard anything from them yet,” Nasa robotics expert Alberto Behar told the BBC.

Also missing is a football-sized floating robotic probe equipped with a GPS positioning transmitter and powered by hi-tech batteries. It has failed to communicate its position. “We did not hear a signal back, so it probably got stuck under the ice somewhere,” said Behar.

The experiment was intended to examine the movement of glaciers, which has speeded up in recent years. Scientists believe that melting water lubricates the bases of glaciers.

Although low-tech, the $2 ducks were chosen for their buoyancy and for their ability to withstand low temperatures. Nasa is offering a modest prize of $100 to the first person who finds a duck. The ducks have an email address stamped on them, together with the word “reward” in three languages, including Inuit.b