If this record-setting winter has turned Madison other-worldly, that ‘s just fine with a group of scientists who were working on snowy Lake Mendota Tuesday.
The researchers, from NASA and from the University of Illinois-Chicago, are using the frigid waters of the lake this week to test an underwater robot — a robot slated to explore permanently ice-covered lakes in Antarctica later this year, and eventually to search for signs of life beneath the frozen lakes on the most famous of Jupiter ‘s moons, Europa.