Another Wonder,

from the deep,

 “Fifteen years ago, MBARI researchers spotted a large jelly that looked like Atolla but lacked the telltale trailing tentacle, and their curiosity was piqued,” MBARI said, and now the mystery has been solved when earlier this year one of the deep-sea creatures was documented floating through the midnight zone, it was the uncommon A. Reynoldsi that became the subject of study for scientists at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute,

bigger than most in the Atolla genus, this particular specimen measured 5.1 inches across with about 30 to 40 small, coiled tentacles that differ from other species’ singular, long appendages, as I have mentioned before in a similar post, Paul Snelgrove, a Oceanographer commented:

"We know more about the surface of the Moon and about Mars than we do about [the deep sea floor], despite the fact that we have yet to extract a gram of food, a breath of oxygen or a drop of water from those bodies."

the reason of course is cost, as Robert Ballard, Ocean Researcher noted:

"If you compare NASA's annual budget to explore the heavens, that one year budget would fund NOAA's budget to explore the oceans for 1,600 years."

NOAA is the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration,

the institute has only recorded about ten sightings of the A. Reynoldsi since 2006, a discovery researchers say “remind(s) us that we still know so little about the ocean, the largest living space on Earth.” so so true.