4,000 meters down: A discovery in the Pacific that may change our search for alien life
Produced by: Mohsin Shaikh
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Dark Oxygen
Oxygen was found deep in the Pacific seabed, produced without sunlight, in a groundbreaking study led by Professor Andrew Sweetman of the Scottish Association for Marine Science.
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Metallic Rocks
Sweetman’s team discovered that manganese and cobalt-rich rocks release oxygen through electrolysis, a process that challenges traditional views of oxygen production.
Credit: Pallava Bagla/Corbis via Getty Images
Deep Study
The team has secured $2.7 million in funding from the Nippon Foundation for a three-year study to explore how these deep-sea processes occur at depths of up to 11,000 meters.
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Global Phenomenon
Microbiologist Emil Ruff, who studied oxygen production in lightless Canadian freshwater, suggests such processes might occur in other remote environments globally.
Credit: Marine Biological Laboratory
Life Support
Ruff’s findings show that dark oxygen supports microbial life in extreme conditions, hinting at how life could survive in environments previously thought uninhabitable.
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NASA’s Interest
NASA is closely monitoring Sweetman’s findings, exploring how similar processes could support life on icy moons like Europa and Enceladus, where sunlight is absent.
Mining Threat
The Clarion-Clipperton Zone, where Sweetman’s discovery was made, faces risks from deep-sea mining, which could destroy ecosystems producing dark oxygen.
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Ecosystem Risk
Critics warn that mining for metals like cobalt, essential for green technologies, could irreparably harm microbial communities critical to these discoveries.
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Space Frontier
Sweetman’s work could redefine our understanding of survival beyond Earth, influencing future missions to search for life in extreme conditions on other planets.
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