Your front-row seat to the deepest place on Earth.
Scientists just estimated that Earth could contain as many as 1 trillion species, an incredible 99.999 percent of which are currently undiscovered. And it's a good bet that a whole lot of those mystery creatures are hiding out at the bottom of the ocean, which is just one of the reasons why this live video feed is so awesome.
Stick it on at work and you could witness something no other human has ever seen before - or at the very least, you'll get scientists cracking jokes about basket stars lining up to renew their driver's licenses. Guys, welcome to the Mariana Trench - the deepest place on the planet, that plunges about 11 km (7 miles) deep, and is farther down than the summit of Mount Everest is above sea level.
The feed comes to us courtesy of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) Okeanos Explorer, an exploration vessel with a deep-sea ROV (remotely operated vehicle) that's currently cruising around the Mariana Trench Marine National Monument just east of the Philippines.
The expedition has been running since April 20, and will continue to right through to July 10, so you've got a whole lot of live feed hours ahead of you.
A word of caution though - this thing will eat up all of your time and attention if you're not careful.
Over the course of writing this, the ROV has traversed an area that's packed with life, including new species of coral, adorable crabs (pilot to biologist in feed: "I thought you hated crustaceans!") and upside-down-swimming fish.
I'm not kidding - fish in the Mariana Trench swim upside-down, and scientists have no idea why (which is reasonable, seeing as they just found out about it 5 minutes ago).
We also got an incredible close-up of what's been tentatively identified as a beautifully pink and "furious-looking" scorpionfish, which you can see above, and in the images below.
Be sure to check out the feed above, and click here for a map that tracks the ship's location in real time. You can also 'rewind' the video to watch the last 3 hours or so of footage that you've missed.
Source Agency
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