In 2016, the SuBastian underwater drone collected new videos of black smokers from the bottom of the Mariana Trench - hydrothermal vents that fuel life at a depth of several thousand meters.
Researchers at the Schmidt Institute of Oceanology in California lowered the SuBastian underwater unmanned probe near the Mariana Trench, where a new area of hydrothermal activity had been found a year earlier. Oceanologists flew the probe from the research vessel Falkor.
At the bottom of the ocean, in these places, black pillars of hot water and mud rise, between which there are many more living organisms than usually at such a depth. The conditions for biodiversity are created by rocks that are easier to grasp than the shapeless layers of sand that usually line the bottom, as well as heat coming from underground depths. As a result, unique ecosystems are formed around the "black smokers".
Scientists believe that in the samples collected by the SuBastian apparatus, and in its images and videos, new species unknown to science can also be found.