Clouds and dust above the Sahara Desert. Taken by ISS astronaut Alex Gerst on 8 Sep 2014.
A probe into the freezing, pitch-black Mariana's Trench, the deepest point on Earth at about seven miles, has found it bursting with
life at every scale:
We saw the deepest living fish ever recorded," says Drazen. "Definitely something new. We took one look at the thing and were amazed — big wide wing-like fins, this eel-like tail and this scalloped face. It was very unique." They nicknamed it the "ghost fish" for its almost translucent skin.
The scientists also wanted to know what lives in the sediment at the bottom. The sediment is made of decomposed ocean life that constantly drifts down from above like snow. The landers dug into the sediment and measured the respiration rate of microbes in it. Drazen says the results were astonishing. "The rates were really high; it was incredible. It was really cooking."