The ocean isn’t the easiest place to explore. Aside from the fact that it covers most of the Earth itself, it’s also pretty much uninhabitable by man because, you know, we have this habit of breathing. Because it’s just so big, a vast majority of the ocean is hard to study for extended periods of time. In fact, it’s estimated only 0.0001% of the deep ocean has actually been explored.
Right now, a research mission known as Nekton is exploring some of those previously unexplored depths. With the use of a fish bowl-like $2.2 million mini-submarine known as the Triton, researchers are regularly taking dives down beyond 300 meters (984 feet+). That accomplishes a lot, as the mission (shown here on a dive in Bermuda) is discovering new species every day, one of its team members told The Guardian. Other discoveries include fossilized beaches covered up since the ice age, new species of coral and data on temperature change in the ocean among other things.
So what does a dive in one of these bad boys look like? Oliver Milman is a reporter from The Guardian who had a chance to go on such a dive himself and this is his own three-hour, deep sea voyage.
