NASA And WHOI Team Up To Explore Earth's Deep Oceans
Our planet Earth has a special place in the cosmos because as far as we know, ours is the only one that supports life. That may change in the future, but for the time being, we might as well enjoy that status.
There are millions and millions of species of plants and animals and we all share this planet. But what is more amazing is that we are still discovering new species every single day. Be it plants, fungi, insects, fish or any other category, we keep finding more and more.
Some experts estimate that around 81% of the species are yet to be discovered (source). So that's why our efforts to discover them becomes that much more important.
One such important effort is focused at finding new species at the deepest part of the oceans (which has been largely unexplored). NASA and WHOI (Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution) have teamed up for deep sea exploration, using autonomous drones which could one day scour the oceans to find alien life on other worlds as well.
Looking For Life
The project, called Orpheus, aims to send autonomous submarines with various scientific instruments on board to explore the hadal zone, which is around 6 to 11 kilometres (3.7 to 6.8 miles) beneath the surface. You might have read scattered news over the years about scientists discovering exotic species of fish, octopus, jellyfish and more which have mostly come from the deepest parts of oceans.
We still don't understand fully how life has evolved down there, and how the different species are able to survive the extreme pressure and conditions at the deepest parts. That's why we might discover some really strange species.
What is great about Orpheus is that it can do the exploration work on its own (and in swarms) thereby mitigating the risks posed to humans. They are small and light enough to effectively and efficiently conduct their search.
Also, in a more distant future, highly advanced versions of Orpheus could end up searching for alien life on other ocean worlds like Jupiter's moon Europa. That will still take time as the Project needs to prove its effectiveness here on Earth and find us some new species in hordes.
Image Credits - OceanX and WHOI
To listen to the audio version of this article click on the play image.
Brought to you by @tts. If you find it useful please consider upvoting this reply.
Thanks!
I thought NASA meant 'national aeronautics and space administration." Who knew that they were into climate change AND deep sea exploration. Mission Creep?
Yeah I thought that too, but apparently the Jet Propulsion Lab is indeed helping with this project.
You got a 59.82% upvote from @ocdb courtesy of @sauravrungta! :)
@ocdb is a non-profit bidbot for whitelisted Steemians, current max bid is 60 SBD and the equivalent amount in STEEM.
Check our website https://thegoodwhales.io/ for the whitelist, queue and delegation info. Join our Discord channel for more information.
If you like what @ocd does, consider voting for ocd-witness through SteemConnect or on the Steemit Witnesses page. :)