Penetrating the Oceans Deeper Than Ever Before

Earlier this week, the Internet was high off the first official confirmation of an exoplanet in a “habitable zone,” the area encompassing a star with conditions that could support liquid water. While it’s unclear just what makes up Kepler-22b, as this new planet is known, we do know that the thing is 600 light-years away and circling its host star on an orbit comparable, it would seem, to one Earth-year.

This is a profound discovery – not yet pack-your-bags worthy, but nonetheless profound given our pathetically limited understanding of the cosmos, its objects and phenomena. And yet, it’s also a reminder about the limits of our understanding of our own planet.

In many ways we know more about Earth’s potential twin, and all other inconceivably distant heavenly bodies and events, than we do about what’s happening below the surface right here on Earth. Space is sexy, seemingly vast and empty. The Earth is charred, finite and overcrowded. So it’s unsurprising that even in a time of budgetary belt-tightening, funding for a Mars rover, say, will likely win out over pumping billions of dollar into what would effectively piece together a giant X-ray of our hopeless little rock.

But two recent deep-sea mapping expeditions are shining much-needed light across two of Earth’s deepest (and navigable) floors: the Mariana and Tonga trenches. It’s here that some of Earth’s most violent events play out in the dark, remote levels of almost inconceivably punishing habitats.

Read the rest at Motherboard.