On board

For a year, an autonomous robot, the Papa Mau, traveled 9,000 miles from California to Australia, piloted remotely by scientists interested in the data it could collect along the way about the oceans. The robot's developer, Silicon Valley's Liquid Robotics, said that it set a record for the longest distance traveled on the Earth's surface by a robot. Called a Wave Glider, the Papa Mau is designed to travel under its own power, with no fuel or outside propulsion.