We talked to a NOAA scientist about finding that mysterious golden 'orb,' the 'weird stuff' in the deep sea, and the role of exploration.
A delicate coral, the color of a cherry blossom or a peony, moves gently with the water, each of its intricate arms outfitted with curled, spindle-like fingers. Unlike some of its relatives, this coral is skeleton-free — almost gelatinous in appearance, and see-through around the edges.
"We picked it because we thought it was going to be a weird place," NOAA physical scientist Sam Candio, the expedition's coordinator, told us over a video call. "And then we see weird stuff down there." "Even from far away, [we were] like, 'what do we have here?'" Candio recalled. We caught the scientist shortly after NOAA had submerged its ROV for the day's exploration, and he was monitoring the live feed as we spoke. "I immediately thought sponge, because you see a lot of those at these depths. But getting closer, it looked less and less spongy.
"We see weird stuff every dive — that wasn't even the most interesting thing that jumped out at us at that time," said Candio, adding that a "lot of what we see, we just don't know what it is." "The egg-like object helps to highlight the role that corals and sponges play in the deep sea by providing habitat for a wide diversity of invertebrates and fishes," she said. "If it is an egg, it will be exciting to find out what laid it, perhaps a species that is new to science!"
But like outer space, our unexplored oceans hold a particular lure, especially at these lightless depths. Without the Sun to provide energy, life there is as close to alien as any on Earth can get; it's a planet within a planet, and the scientific community has hardly scratched the surface.
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