I'm for and against both...
I'll explain when it's not my bedtime...
Goodnight @Tiny_leaf and @N1ghtW1ng!
Okay, so the drawing didn't work out and my last post draft refused to post and then deleted itself.
So, attempt 3. 🤞
It is believed that on Jupiter's moon Europa, there are hydrothermal vents. There is even the possibility that life lives by these, surviving on the chemicals that they release from Europa's core into its oceans.
Now, imagine this:
A submersible is sent to explore a volcanic region of an ocean.
It dives down, further, deeper, until the natural light darkens, and eventually fades.
It approaches the sea floor, which is covered in hydrothermal vents and lava flow formations.
These formations create strange, almost sculptural shapes in the darkness, now illuminated by the lights of the submersible.
They are draped in mats of yellow-ish microbial life, creating an odd carpet over the stone structures.
The submersible lowers itself, finally touching down on one of the formations.
Suddenly, a swarm of pale blue, ribbon-like creatures flee into the water column, trying to escape the disturbance.
This scene, however, does not happen on the moon Europa, but on a planet. One we know so little about, the one we call Earth.
Eel City, as it is now known, was discovered in 2005, over three decades after the moon landing, and nearly a decade after the first Mars probe.
One other thing hidden in our oceans is a snail so unique that militaries are studying it, trying to improve their armor designs.
This snail lives in the chemical infused waters around hydrothermal vents, and it has an incredible way of filtering out the toxins it absorbs from this environment. It turns them into armor.
This snail is the only known animal to use iron sulfides in its skeleton or exoskeleton, with this material in both its shell and its scales.
It also has a unique, incredibly strong three layered shell, with excellent shock absorption and an outer layer of iron sulfide.
We imagine the strange, wonderful things that may be in space, but we ignore the ones on our own planet, hidden in our oceans.
Why do we rush to find these wonders in our solar system, when we barely know the ones in our own backyard; a backyard so bizarre and wonderful that it could be the setting of a sci-fi movie?
There's so more Earth has for us to discover.
