- 2 days ago
Scientists just confirmed something wild: Earth may have a sixth ocean — and it’s not on the surface. It’s locked deep inside the planet, hidden in minerals hundreds of miles underground.
This “ocean” holds more water than all seas combined, but you’d never see a drop of it.
The discovery changes how we understand Earth’s water cycle and even plate tectonics.
Turns out, our planet has been hiding secrets right under our feet the whole time. Animation is created by Bright Side.
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This video is made for entertainment purposes. We do not make any warranties about the completeness, safety and reliability. Any action you take upon the information in this video is strictly at your own risk, and we will not be liable for any damages or losses. It is the viewer's responsibility to use judgement, care and precaution if you plan to replicate.
This “ocean” holds more water than all seas combined, but you’d never see a drop of it.
The discovery changes how we understand Earth’s water cycle and even plate tectonics.
Turns out, our planet has been hiding secrets right under our feet the whole time. Animation is created by Bright Side.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Music from TheSoul Sound: https://thesoul-sound.com/
Check our Bright Side podcast on Spotify and leave a positive review! https://open.spotify.com/show/0hUkPxD34jRLrMrJux4VxV
Subscribe to Bright Side: https://goo.gl/rQTJZz
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Our Social Media:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/brightplanet/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/brightside.official
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@brightside.official?lang=en
Stock materials (photos, footages and other):
https://www.depositphotos.com
https://www.shutterstock.com
https://www.eastnews.ru
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
For more videos and articles visit: http://www.brightside.me
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This video is made for entertainment purposes. We do not make any warranties about the completeness, safety and reliability. Any action you take upon the information in this video is strictly at your own risk, and we will not be liable for any damages or losses. It is the viewer's responsibility to use judgement, care and precaution if you plan to replicate.
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FunTranscript
00:00Our planet has five oceans – the Pacific, Atlantic, Indian, Southern, and Arctic.
00:06Not counting Billy Ocean.
00:09But it seems there's a sixth one out there, too.
00:11It's just that you can't see it.
00:14Scientists have found evidence of large amounts of water hidden in the transition zone.
00:19That's the boundary layer that separates the upper and lower mantle of our planet.
00:24That boundary goes hundreds of miles deep down below the surface.
00:28Natural diamonds usually form in the mantle, but at depths of up to 155 miles.
00:34Some of them are very rare.
00:36They may come from deeper depths.
00:38That was the case with this fascinating diamond that formed 410 miles below the surface.
00:44The gem was big enough for scientists to study it and determine what it was made of.
00:49They were surprised when the composition of this very rare diamond
00:52showed that it was formed in pretty watery conditions.
00:56Because of that, such a diamond wouldn't be worth much in jewelry stores.
01:00But it was priceless in the lab.
01:03So, could this mean there's an ocean under the surface of our planet?
01:07It would definitely get us closer to the idea Jules Verne had about this whole magical secret world inside Earth.
01:15Including the ocean.
01:16But that's not exactly the case.
01:19The water is there, true.
01:21But it's not like you can enjoy the view watching waves splashing around like on the surface of our planet.
01:27The water is actually stored within the minerals.
01:30That's why this area is so wet.
01:33Let's now move to Africa to keep up with the story.
01:35Or, to be more specific, to a spot called the Afar region.
01:39It's part of Ethiopia and a place where three tectonic plates meet.
01:44Tectonic plates are large pieces of our planet's crust that slowly move.
01:50These movements cause earthquakes and produce volcanoes, mountains, deep underwater valleys we call trenches, and so on.
01:57And the Afar Valley is where the Arabian, Somali, and Nubian plates meet.
02:03Together, they form an intersection in the shape of a Y.
02:06Why?
02:07Let me tell you.
02:08These plates are moving all the time.
02:12The Somali plate is moving southeast toward the Australian and Indian plates.
02:16The Arabian plate is moving north, getting closer to the Eurasian plate.
02:21At some point, it will close the Persian Gulf.
02:24This movement of plates has created something we call the Great Rift Valley.
02:29Considering there are, you know, all these cool rifts.
02:32The Aden Ridge to the east.
02:34The Red Sea Rift to the west.
02:36The Oculus Rift and the East African Rift to the south.
02:40But the East African Rift is something we want to focus on, because this one could be the key to this potential sixth ocean, but this time on the surface.
02:50A continental rift is a spot where two tectonic plates that form a single continent start to separate.
02:57Here, it's the Somali and Nubian plates.
03:00Together, they're parts that make up Africa.
03:03If they keep moving in separate directions, this currently continental rift may become what we call an oceanic spreading ridge.
03:11In other words, when the plates are far enough apart from each other, there will be an enormous crack between them.
03:18This way, magma will freely flow up from beneath them.
03:22It'll be cool and eventually start creating a new ocean floor.
03:26Africa will be split into two parts, and there will be a new ocean flowing between what will turn into two mini-continents.
03:33Nope, it's not time to get your swim trunks and sunscreen yet.
03:38Even if the Somali and Arabian plates do move far enough to form an oceanic spreading ridge, it'll take millions of years before this happens.
03:47So I guess it's more interesting to stick to exploring this sixth ocean below the Earth's surface for now.
03:53The idea of subsurface oceans goes beyond the borders of our planet.
03:59It's possible many moons and planets out there have them too.
04:02Our home planet is the only one we know about with consistent bodies of liquid water on the surface, true.
04:10In our solar system, we circle around the Sun in something called the habitable zone.
04:15The temperature and atmospheric pressure within this zone allow water to remain in liquid form all the time.
04:22But a couple of moons in our solar system could also contain significant amounts of water under their surface.
04:29Ancetylis, one of Saturn's moons, is the first one.
04:34Ancetylis is a small frozen ball, seven times smaller in diameter than our moon.
04:39But it's the sixth biggest moon of Saturn.
04:42Nearly a decade ago, a spacecraft found evidence that there was a large ocean under its surface.
04:49It found and sampled water from the eruptions that resembled geysers.
04:53A geyser is a rare type of hot spring that erupts and sends jets of steam and water into the air.
04:59You know, like Old Faithful in Yellowstone.
05:02Well, this water was erupting through fissures in the ice at the south pole of the moon.
05:07That means there might be a liquid ocean under the thick layers of ice.
05:12The ocean there is almost nothing like ours.
05:15The ocean on Earth is relatively shallow, on average 2.2 miles deep, and it covers three-quarters of our planet's surface.
05:24It gets colder the closer you come to the seafloor, and is warmer if you stay close to the surface because of the sun's rays.
05:31But the subsurface ocean on Ancetylis is at least 18 miles deep.
05:36It's cooler at the top, because that part is near the ice shell, and warmer at the bottom because of the heat coming from the moon's core.
05:45But both our ocean and the ocean on Ancetylis are salty.
05:50Ancetylis is one of the few places in our solar system that has liquid water, which makes it an interesting spot to search for signs of life.
05:58Another one is Europa, one of Jupiter's moons.
06:02Scientists think similar eruptions of water could be happening there.
06:07Knowing there are such geysers there tells us these moons have their own source of energy.
06:12Maybe the energy that makes the water erupt comes from gravity or radiation.
06:18The same energy could keep a large body of liquid water under the ice.
06:22It could even support some forms of life.
06:24There are thousands of planets beyond our solar system that orbit other stars.
06:30Some are even in the habitable zone.
06:33Over a quarter of the ones that we know about could have liquid water.
06:37But the majority of them probably have oceans under their surface, like Ancetylis and Europa.
06:44Pluto might be on this list too, since it's possible it hides a liquid ocean under its thick frozen shell.
06:50This subsurface ocean likely formed long after the dwarf planet did, after the heat coming from radioactive elements in Pluto's core melted some of its ice.
07:01There's also something called water worlds.
07:04Those are moons or planets with global oceans that are more common than we thought.
07:09I mean, some call Earth a water world too.
07:1271% of its surface is water after all.
07:15And when you look at our home planet from space, you mostly get those blue marble pictures.
07:22When exploring other planets, especially those outside of our solar system, researchers often go with a policy of follow the water.
07:31After all, water is the main element we know that's necessary for supporting life.
07:36And when there's a water world that's close to its parent star, scientists assume it must have formed way farther and then moved closer once its orbit shrank.
07:47The composition of the planet was set when it was in a colder orbit, or, in other words, when it made a wider circle around its star.
07:55We call the process of orbital shrinking a migration.
07:58And if water worlds are really that common, it can be proof that migration really happens.
08:06Exoplanets are all those planets that orbit around other stars, not our sun.
08:11Some exoplanets may have oceans that are way deeper than any of those in our solar system.
08:17Hundreds or even thousands of miles deep.
08:19Our Mariana Trench is scary, and it's not even 7 miles deep.
08:24And those exoplanet oceans are, wow, almost bottomless.
08:30The Earth has three main layers.
08:33Two parts of the core.
08:35The dense, hot inner core.
08:37And the molten outer core.
08:39Then comes the mantle.
08:41And then follows the thin crust, the surface that supports life as we know it.
08:46At least, that's what we thought.
08:48Because now, scientists found a new mysterious layer located deep within the solid inner core.
08:55Earth's inner core is approximately two-thirds the size of the moon.
09:00And made of nickel and solid iron.
09:02It's burning hot.
09:03The temperature at the center of our planet is the same as at the surface of the sun.
09:08The outer core can reach almost 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit.
09:12It's difficult to explore it, because we can't go there.
09:17And it's like looking through a really dirty window of 3,200 miles of molten metal and rocks.
09:23But we can rely on laboratory experiments on heated pressurized rocks,
09:28signals from seismic waves,
09:30and computer models.
09:32When an earthquake hits, it sends out seismic shockwaves.
09:37Those waves travel through layers at a different speed,
09:40depending on the direction they go and the material they move through.
09:44In the new study, a team of scientists set a data set of 100,000 deep earthquakes.
09:50Some of them went over 60 miles below the surface.
09:53When an earthquake happens on one side of our planet,
09:56scientists track its waves all along to the other side.
09:59Waves change when they come to the other side.
10:02So scientists try to understand the materials these waves have passed through.
10:06They found a new layer in the core of our planet thanks to earthquakes.
10:11Normally, shockwaves travel along the equator,
10:14but down below, they digress and go into different directions,
10:18about 60 degrees to the side.
10:20When waves pass through the inner core going from north to south,
10:23they will travel more quickly than waves going through the core parallel to the equator.
10:28It's important to understand the core,
10:30because it creates our magnetic field,
10:33which, in turn, protects the planet from things like solar winds
10:36that are charged particles coming from the sun.
10:38In the 1960s, we discovered the Earth pulsates every 26 seconds.
10:45It's like clockwork, a giant heartbeat.
10:47The ground is slightly shaking, but we mostly don't feel it.
10:51Researchers can still track it.
10:53Some of them think the continental shelf comes as a huge wave break under the oceans.
10:59For example, the highest part of the North American continent falls off into a deep abyssal plain.
11:05One theory says waves hit this spot, producing regular pulses.
11:11It's like having all kinds of drums.
11:13You hit them with your hands and accidentally slam that one spot that produces the right harmonic bang
11:19to rattle our entire planet.
11:22If this theory is true, we're lucky there are no more spots like this that can shake the Earth.
11:27Other scientists believe the pulsation happens because there's a volcano near the critical spot.
11:34The island of Saotome in the Bight of Bani.
11:38You're walking, running, and jumping,
11:41but when you stop, it always feels like you're standing still.
11:45In reality, you're moving even when you're perfectly still
11:48because our planet is always on the move.
11:51Depending on where you're at,
11:53you could be spinning through the universe at more than 1,000 miles per hour.
11:57If you're on the equator, you'll move the fastest.
12:01Let's say you have a basketball spinning on your finger.
12:04Check the ball's equator.
12:06A random point on it has farther to go in just one spin than any point near your finger.
12:12That means the point on the equator is moving more quickly.
12:16The Earth is a planet that recycles all the time.
12:20The ground we're walking on is recycled.
12:23Our planet's rock cycle turns rocks of one type into another.
12:28That's a cycle that goes on and on.
12:31The depths of our planet are filled with magma.
12:34As magma is going out onto the surface, it hardens into rock.
12:38Tectonic processes like volcanic activity, earthquakes, mountain building,
12:45and all of the other processes that shape the surface of our planet
12:48bring that rock to the Earth's surface.
12:51When the rock is on the surface, erosion shapes it and shaves its bits off.
12:56Those small particles then get deposited.
12:58All the pressure coming from above compacts the particles into sedimentary rocks,
13:04like, for example, sandstone.
13:07Sedimentary rocks can also end up deeper and deeper under the Earth's surface.
13:11Since there's a lot of heat and pressure, they get cooked into metamorphic rocks.
13:18They can go back to the surface once again or even end up being re-eroded.
13:23Sometimes the crust plates are pushing one under another,
13:26and this way rocks can transform into magma once again.
13:30We've explored only 5% of the ocean so far.
13:35The ocean itself, as well as life below the seafloor, is still a mystery.
13:40The sediments that are underlying our oceans are home to different microorganisms
13:44that exist even at depths of 1.5 miles beneath the seafloor.
13:50There are microbes hidden deep inside volcanic rocks below the seafloor
13:54off of the parts of the Pacific, hidden under 870 feet of sediment.
14:00The biosphere under the seafloor is growing extremely slowly compared to life on the surface.
14:06Cell division happens every 10 to 1,000 years.
14:11Something's different about the Earth's axis.
14:14Climate changes and melting glaciers,
14:17mostly in the regions like the Himalayas and Alaska,
14:21made the axis shift.
14:23Our planet has two kinds of poles.
14:26Are the south and north magnetic poles.
14:28They affect things such as drift and navigation.
14:34The axis that the Earth is spinning around is another kind of pole.
14:38It shifted a little bit over time, but we don't know exactly why.
14:43Researchers realize there are moving masses of water,
14:46pushing the Earth's axis eastward.
14:49Take a basin of water as an example.
14:51If you're moving it back and forth,
14:53sloshing makes the water move its weight all around.
14:55A similar thing is happening on a planetary level.
15:01No matter how large an earthquake is,
15:03no human could ever feel an earthquake on the opposite side of the Earth,
15:07although some people claim they did.
15:10In 2013, there was one near the Curl Islands with a magnitude of 8.5.
15:16It went around 400 miles deep.
15:18It was so strong, people in Australia reported they could feel the ground shaking.
15:26The strongest earthquake happened in Chile in 1960 with a magnitude of 9.5.
15:34The rupture zone stretched from 311 miles to almost 620 miles along the country's coast.
15:40Earthquakes with a magnitude of 10 or higher can't happen.
15:45The magnitude depends on the length of the fault where it occurs.
15:48The longer the fault, the bigger the earthquake.
15:52A fault is a break in a part of the planet's crust.
15:56It has rocks on both sides, and they move past each other.
15:59We haven't found a fault long enough to generate earthquakes with a magnitude of 10 or more.
16:04If it happened, it would extend around most of our planet.
16:08An earthquake with a magnitude of 12 would require a fault larger than our planet.
16:15One side of our planet is getting colder than the other.
16:17The Earth has a system that keeps it warm from the inside, a red-hot liquid interior deep below the surface.
16:26It spins and, at the same time, generates a magnetic field and gravity.
16:32That way, the Earth's core holds the atmosphere closer to the planet's surface.
16:37The Earth also absorbs heat from the sun, mostly on the surface.
16:41The heat doesn't spread equally on all parts of the Earth.
16:44One side of the planet, the Pacific Hemisphere, is losing heat more quickly than another, the African Hemisphere.
16:52This happens because land traps more heat than the surface under the ocean.
16:57The seafloor is way thinner than the landmass.
17:00Also, the temperature caused by the heat coming from inside the Earth is getting lower
17:04because of huge amounts of cold water above it.
17:08Clouds are not just like some fluffy distant pieces of cotton.
17:12They weigh more than a million pounds.
17:14And help regulate our planet's temperature.
17:17If you take all the water droplets and clouds and bring them to the surface,
17:21you could cover the planet with a liquid layer as thin as a human hair.
17:26It doesn't seem like a lot, but this water is crucially important for climate.
17:31We'd have warmer temperatures if it weren't for the clouds.
17:34That's it for today.
17:37So hey, if you pacified your curiosity, then give the video a like and share it with your friends.
17:42Or if you want more, just click on these videos and stay on the bright side.
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