Known as an organization with bunch of science and technology geniuses, NASA has always managed to create advanced solutions such as space rockets, lunar modules, etc. in discovering data and facts that mankind has yet to learn. But when a highly sophisticated plan has failed to bring in necessary information and satisfactory outcome, some might doubt the capabilities of low-tech ways to do such thing.

However, Robotics expert Alberto Behar, with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California has recently resort to a simpler experiment. Wanting to gather relevant data on whether pools of melted glacial ice were showing up in the ocean, Behar used something as primitive as rubber ducks.

A brigade of rubber ducks might help NASA figure out if water shooting through tunnels in Greenland’s Jakobshavn Glacier makes it into Baffin Bay. The dispatched probe that makes its way to the glacier’s water tunnels has a positioning sensor and satellite telephone so NASA would be able to track where the water ends up. During the summer, ice melts on glacier’s surfaces, getting into shallow lakes and streams, then falls eventually into water tunnels in the ice, also called moulins.

Seelye Martin, the program manager for NASA’s Earth sciences division said the agency is a little frustrated as of the moment. “The water has to go somewhere but we don’t know where.”

As part of the continuous study on global warming, this test will hopefully determine and understand the changes in the Earth’s water levels. The experiment may not be as highly complicated as those using NASA capsules, but getting significant results is still a possibility.