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Dive deep into the ocean's secrets as scientists uncover a bizarre golden orb and make the astonishing discovery of a hidden sixth ocean beneath the Earth's surface. These findings could change everything we know about our planet's watery depths.
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00:01A remote survey vehicle, Okinos Explorer, found this mysterious golden orb in the Gulf of Alaska, about two miles deep
00:09underwater.
00:10No one can say what this thing is.
00:12It's a strange object just four inches wide, and it was firmly stuck to some rock.
00:18When you touch it, it's smooth, soft, feels like flesh.
00:22You can even see a hole in it, as if something escaped from there.
00:26But what?
00:30Divers brought the mysterious orb to the lab from the Pacific Ocean.
00:34They felt like in the beginning of a horror movie, almost as if if you poked this thing, something would
00:39jump at you.
00:40This could happen if they had found it sooner.
00:42The hole in that orb means something alive tried to get inside or break out from inside.
00:48Which is why scientists assume that this is an egg.
00:51We might have discovered a new species, or a new life stage of some species we already know.
00:56Some species do lay their eggs on the ocean floor, like squids.
01:01Although, if that's the case, then these animals might be gigantic, because that egg is huge.
01:09But maybe it's not an egg.
01:12Maybe it's a sponge.
01:13They found this thing surrounded by white coral, where sponges usually vibe.
01:18Just months before this discovery, scientists found more than 5,000 new marine species in a tiny space between Hawaii
01:25and Mexico.
01:26The Gulf of Alaska is home to 52 more species, with tons yet to be identified.
01:32So, maybe it's just one of those sponges we haven't discovered yet.
01:36Or it might be a coral, or something entirely different.
01:40The only thing scientists know for sure is that the thing is a living organism.
01:45They're planning to move the orb to a more advanced lab to conduct DNA testing and reveal more about it.
01:51And it's not our first horrifying discovery from the oceans.
01:58In 2013, two rare locomotives were discovered under 90 feet of water off the coast of New Jersey.
02:05Scientists think that both of them were lost in the 1850s.
02:08For something that's been underwater for 160 years, they're in very good shape, even with layers of rust and barnacles.
02:16You can even see their smokestacks.
02:18And they sit upright, as if ready to pull into a station any minute now.
02:23They're not sure where these locomotives came from.
02:26There's no historical record of them being built or lost, which makes their discovery even more mysterious.
02:32They have strangely rare steam engines, both about 15 tons, lying 5 miles off Long Branch.
02:39The engine models were already outdated even back when these trains were made.
02:43They were small and powerful, but were only produced for a short time.
02:48Perhaps they were on a journey from Boston to the Mid-Atlantic.
02:51Then a storm struck.
02:53It caused them to either fall off a barge or to be deliberately pushed off to save the ship.
02:58Scientists wanted to restore the locomotive to learn more about them.
03:02And this isn't the only gift to the seas humans left behind.
03:08Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon, has found the Apollo 11 F-1 rocket engines in the ocean.
03:15During the 1969 Apollo 11 mission, the Saturn V rocket used five powerful F-1 engines in its first stage.
03:23Each of them produced 1.5 million pounds of thrust.
03:27They burned 6,000 pounds of fuel per second, a million and a half times that of a regular car.
03:33These engines burned for a few minutes before falling back into the Atlantic Ocean.
03:38Jeff Bezos got inspired by this story and began the search for those engines about a year ago.
03:43The team used an advanced deep-sea sonar.
03:46They finally found the engines 14,000 feet below the ocean surface.
03:51Scientists aren't sure what the conditions of the engines will be.
03:54They did have a super-fast impact with the ocean, after all, and then laying over 40 years in saltwater.
04:01But they were built from very tough materials, so hopefully we'll be able to study them.
04:06Ideally, Bezos wants to recover them.
04:08They're still a NASA property, but he hopes to display them in museums like the Smithsonian or the Museum of
04:14Flight in Seattle.
04:18Can you imagine finding the famous Yellow Brick Road from the Wizard of Oz at the bottom of the ocean?
04:24This thing looks like a man-made road, but believe it or not, it's a natural volcanic structure.
04:31Divers were exploring underwater volcanic mountains called seamounts in Hawaii.
04:35They wanted to investigate a split in the seamount trail.
04:38They live-streamed their journey and suddenly stumbled upon something fascinating.
04:43A pattern of cracks in the seabed that looks like a brick road.
04:48They used a robotic arm to pick up the rocks.
04:51The rocks had distinct rectangular blocks separated by straight lines and right angles.
04:56Someone joked that it might be a road to Atlantis, and another called it a yellow brick road, hence the
05:01name.
05:01But after some study, scientists discovered that this dry lakebed was made by super-energetic ancient volcanic eruptions.
05:10This is actually fractured hyaloclastite rock.
05:13Since the volcanoes were going crazy, they heated up and cooled down repeatedly, until they created this unique cobbled pattern.
05:23On June 20, 2011, the OceanX diving team discovered something extremely weird.
05:29They were searching for treasure in the northern Baltic Sea, in the Gulf of Bothnia.
05:34Instead, they found an anomaly.
05:37The thing, dubbed the Baltic Sea Anomaly, logically, looked very weird and unnatural.
05:43The anomaly is almost 200 feet wide.
05:46It looks like a mushroom, rising about 10 to 13 feet from the seabed.
05:51It also has a huge disc shape, twice the size of a football field.
05:55The main part of the anomaly has straight edges and box-like structures.
05:59The top has cracks filled with some unknown black material.
06:04And it's not made of metal.
06:05The object lies about 300 feet deep in the Gulf's waters.
06:09The main mystery is why it's there.
06:15This discovery did create buzz in mass media.
06:18Some people started saying that it might be a sunken extraterrestrial ship, the remains of Atlantis, or a portal to
06:25another world.
06:26These claims got even more support when we found weird pavement-like platforms surrounding the object.
06:32It kind of looks like a staircase.
06:33And on top of that, explorers reported that their electrical equipment, like sonar instruments and satellite phones, malfunctioned near the
06:42thing.
06:42And it's not even some random reports.
06:45Researchers from different institutes said that as well.
06:48But scientists think that this is, most likely, a natural geological formation.
06:53Even if it doesn't look like it.
06:55Although they can't really explain what that formation is supposed to be.
06:59They have many theories.
07:01It could be linked to human evolution, a glacial deposit from the Ice Age, a result of volcanic activity, and
07:07so on.
07:08Maybe it's even the remnants of an asteroid that landed on the seafloor thousands of years ago.
07:13But none of these theories explain why electronic equipment stops working near it.
07:18Who knows?
07:19Maybe we'll learn the truth someday.
07:21But how about technologies that came to us from the distant past?
07:29This strange thing is often called the first known analog computer.
07:33It's called the Antikythera mechanism.
07:36We discovered the mechanisms in 1901 near the Greek island of Antikythera.
07:41It might be from around 87 BCE.
07:44They found it in a shipwreck, in incredibly good shape for being so old.
07:49The thing was super complex.
07:51Machines of similar complexity didn't appear anywhere in the world until the 14th century.
07:56There was also a mysterious lump.
07:59When they separated into multiple fragments, they found inscriptions inside.
08:04They were hard to read because of all the corrosion.
08:07But when they deciphered it with x-ray, they discovered that these were the instructions, telling how exactly to use
08:13it.
08:14Wow, what a gift to archaeologists!
08:16So, it turns out the mechanism was made to predict astronomical positions and eclipses decades ahead.
08:23Ancient scientists used this computer to track the four-year cycle of athletic games, similar to the ancient Olympics.
08:30The mechanism had a very intricate structure of 37 bronze gears that tracked the movements of celestial objects.
08:38But at least here, we know that these things were made by humans.
08:42Right?
08:45Our planet has five oceans.
08:48The Pacific, Atlantic, Indian, Southern, and Arctic.
08:52Not counting Billy Ocean.
08:54But it seems there's a sixth one out there, too.
08:57It's just that you can't see it.
08:59Scientists have found evidence of large amounts of water hidden in the transition zone.
09:04That's the boundary layer that separates the upper and lower mantle of our planet.
09:09That boundary goes hundreds of miles deep down below the surface.
09:13Natural diamonds usually form in the mantle, but at depths of up to 155 miles.
09:19Some of them are very rare.
09:21They may come from deeper depths.
09:23That was the case with this fascinating diamond that formed 410 miles below the surface.
09:29The gem was big enough for scientists to study it and determine what it was made of.
09:34They were surprised when the composition of this very rare diamond showed that it was formed in pretty watery conditions.
09:41Because of that, such a diamond wouldn't be worth much in jewelry stores, but it was priceless in the lab.
09:48So, could this mean there's an ocean under the surface of our planet?
09:52It would definitely get us closer to the idea Jules Verne had about this whole magical secret world inside Earth,
10:00including the ocean.
10:01But that's not exactly the case.
10:04The water is there, true.
10:06But it's not like you can enjoy the view watching waves splashing around like on the surface of our planet.
10:12The water is actually stored within the minerals.
10:15That's why this area is so wet.
10:17Let's now move to Africa to keep up with the story.
10:21Or, to be more specific, to a spot called the Afar region.
10:25It's part of Ethiopia and a place where three tectonic plates meet.
10:30Tectonic plates are large pieces of our planet's crust that slowly move.
10:35These movements cause earthquakes and produce volcanoes, mountains, deep underwater valleys we call trenches, and so on.
10:42And the Afar Valley is where the Arabian, Somali, and Nubian plates meet.
10:48Together, they form an intersection in the shape of a Y.
10:52Why? Let me tell you.
10:54These plates are moving all the time.
10:57The Somali plate is moving southeast toward the Australian and Indian plates.
11:01The Arabian plate is moving north, getting closer to the Eurasian plate.
11:06At some point, it will close the Persian Gulf.
11:09This movement of plates has created something we call the Great Rift Valley.
11:14Considering there are, you know, all these cool rifts.
11:17The Aden Ridge to the east.
11:19The Red Sea Rift to the west.
11:21The Oculus Rift and the East African Rift to the south.
11:25But the East African Rift is something we want to focus on.
11:29Because this one could be the key to this potential sixth ocean.
11:33But this time, on the surface.
11:35A continental rift is a spot where two tectonic plates that form a single continent start to separate.
11:43Here, it's the Somali and Nubian plates.
11:45Together, they're parts that make up Africa.
11:48If they keep moving in separate directions, this currently continental rift may become what we call an oceanic spreading ridge.
11:56In other words, when the plates are far enough apart from each other, there will be an enormous crack between
12:03them.
12:03This way, magma will freely flow up from beneath them.
12:07It'll be cool and eventually start creating a new ocean floor.
12:11Africa will be split into two parts.
12:14And there will be a new ocean flowing between what will turn into two mini-continents.
12:19Nope, it's not time to get your swim trunks and sunscreen yet.
12:23Even if the Somali and Arabian plates do move far enough to form an oceanic spreading ridge, it'll take millions
12:31of years before this happens.
12:33So I guess it's more interesting to stick to exploring this sixth ocean below the Earth's surface for now.
12:39The idea of subsurface oceans goes beyond the borders of our planet.
12:44It's possible many moons and planets out there have them too.
12:48Our home planet is the only one we know about with consistent bodies of liquid water on the surface, true.
12:55In our solar system, we circle around the Sun in something called the habitable zone.
13:00The temperature and atmospheric pressure within this zone allow water to remain in liquid form all the time.
13:07But a couple of moons in our solar system could also contain significant amounts of water under their surface.
13:15Enceladus, one of Saturn's moons, is the first one.
13:19Enceladus is a small frozen ball, seven times smaller in diameter than our moon.
13:24But it's the sixth biggest moon of Saturn.
13:28Nearly a decade ago, a spacecraft found evidence that there was a large ocean under its surface.
13:33It found and sampled water from the eruptions that resembled geysers.
13:38A geyser is a rare type of hot spring that erupts and sends jets of steam and water into the
13:44air.
13:45You know, like Old Faithful and Yellowstone.
13:48Well, this water was erupting through fissures in the ice at the south pole of the moon.
13:53That means there might be a liquid ocean under the thick layers of ice.
13:57The ocean there is almost nothing like ours.
14:00The ocean on Earth is relatively shallow, on average 2.2 miles deep, and it covers three-quarters of our
14:08planet's surface.
14:09It gets colder the closer you come to the seafloor, and is warmer if you stay close to the surface
14:14because of the sun's rays.
14:16But the subsurface ocean on Enceladus is at least 18 miles deep.
14:22It's cooler at the top, because that part is near the ice shell, and warmer at the bottom because of
14:28the heat coming from the moon's core.
14:30But both our ocean and the ocean on Enceladus are salty.
14:35Enceladus is one of the few places in our solar system that has liquid water, which makes it an interesting
14:42spot to search for signs of life.
14:44Another one is Europa, one of Jupiter's moons.
14:47Scientists think similar eruptions of water could be happening there.
14:52Knowing there are such geysers there tells us these moons have their own source of energy.
14:57Maybe the energy that makes the water erupt comes from gravity or radiation.
15:03The same energy could keep a large body of liquid water under the ice.
15:07It could even support some forms of life.
15:10There are thousands of planets beyond our solar system that orbit other stars.
15:15Some are even in the habitable zone.
15:18Over a quarter of the ones that we know about could have liquid water.
15:22But the majority of them probably have oceans under their surface, like Enceladus and Europa.
15:29Pluto might be on this list too, since it's possible it hides a liquid ocean under its thick frozen shell.
15:35This subsurface ocean likely formed long after the dwarf planet did, after the heat coming from radioactive elements in Pluto's
15:44core melted some of its ice.
15:46There's also something called water worlds.
15:49Those are moons or planets with global oceans that are more common than we thought.
15:54I mean, some call Earth a water world too.
15:5871% of its surface is water, after all.
16:01And when you look at our home planet from space, you mostly get those blue marble pictures.
16:07When exploring other planets, especially those outside of our solar system, researchers often go with a policy of follow the
16:15water.
16:16After all, water is the main element we know that's necessary for supporting life.
16:22And when there's a water world that's close to its parent star, scientists assume it must have formed way farther
16:29and then moved closer once its orbit shrank.
16:32The composition of the planet was set when it was in a colder orbit, or, in other words, when it
16:38made a wider circle around its star.
16:40We call the process of orbital shrinking a migration.
16:44And if water worlds are really that common, it can be proof that migration really happens.
16:51Exoplanets are all those planets that orbit around other stars, not our sun.
16:56Some exoplanets may have oceans that are way deeper than any of those in our solar system.
17:02Hundreds or even thousands of miles deep.
17:05Our Mariana Trench is scary, and it's not even seven miles deep.
17:09And those exoplanet oceans are, wow, almost bottomless.
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