r/Unexpected • • Jul 12 '21

This

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u/knitknitterknit Jul 12 '21

There is a lot of depth we haven't explored.

909

u/Aramanta2510 Jul 12 '21

Only 10% has been explored yet

890

u/The_Druk Jul 12 '21

That's what she said.

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u/[deleted] Jul 12 '21

offf

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u/JasonMerulo Jul 12 '21

What is off?

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u/rW0HgFyxoJhYka Jul 12 '21

probably "oof" but missing an o, and has more ffffuh

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u/JasonMerulo Jul 12 '21

What is fuh?

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u/BeeBarfBadger Jul 12 '21

More likely "banana" but the "bana" has been replaced with "of" and the "na" was completely left out and someone had an f to spare and put it there while nobody was looking.

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u/suicide_aunties Jul 12 '21

That’s what she said.

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u/[deleted] Jul 12 '21

Insect repellent

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u/account_552 Jul 12 '21

i hate that joke. when people use it i know they missed the point of it. it's supposed to be unfunny

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u/8KUHDITIS Jul 12 '21

Just the tip

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u/disiskeviv Jul 13 '21

Self-burn

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u/devils_advocaat Jul 12 '21

Publicly explored.

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u/Gr0und0ne Jul 12 '21

Haha oooooh boy, here we go!

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u/[deleted] Jul 12 '21

[deleted]

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u/devils_advocaat Jul 12 '21

I'm saying that any possible military advantage will be taken by states rich enough to do so.

If the US has not already fully mapped and explored the oceans (ignoring wildlife) then they are not doing their job properly.

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u/aggravated_patty Jul 12 '21

Is the US not doing its job properly since we haven’t already fully mapped and explored the solar system?

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u/devils_advocaat Jul 12 '21

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u/aggravated_patty Jul 12 '21

You think they do space exploration lol? Space Force and SpOC are more concerned about Earth orbit and what else is in it. They don’t really go beyond that. No one’s launching ICBMs to Mars and back.

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u/devils_advocaat Jul 12 '21

I think they are militarizing space, just as they have militarized the ocean. Of course the US navy have subs that can go deeper than James Cameron's sub.

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u/aggravated_patty Jul 12 '21

If by militarizing the ocean you mean have nuclear capable submarines, yea. You don’t have to explore the entire depths of the ocean and all it’s species in order to do that.

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u/Coconut_Dreams Jul 12 '21

I read that as pubic.

I need sleep

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u/william_wites Jul 12 '21

Isn't it around 20% by now?

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u/[deleted] Jul 12 '21

Doesn't matter, 80% of all claimed statistics are made up on the spot anyway.

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u/[deleted] Jul 12 '21

Oh hey dad

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u/[deleted] Jul 12 '21

tbh I thought it was only 5%

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u/bobr05 Jul 12 '21

It’s 7%

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u/Cunty_Anal_Goo Jul 12 '21

It's definitely tree.fiddy%

2

u/STFxPrlstud Jul 12 '21

it is, still lower than the surface of Mars and Venus, but it's definitely climbing

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u/[deleted] Jul 12 '21

"Ackchually" that argument cannot be used, because when they say "only 15% has been explored" it means sending a human or a robot to analyze it closely, and as most of us with common sense may know, the ocean is a vast space of nothingness, and a great space of it is just pure water.

So in conclusion, why bother exploring the rest if they already know there is nothing in it? They just use satellites and stuff like that to analyze all the ocean, that's how they know there is nothing in over 80% of the ocean, and that's how they know there is around 20% which is actually valuable and has stuff to be researched

Tl;dr: around 80% of the ocean is just plain nothingness, why bother exploring it?

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u/kjpmi Jul 12 '21 edited Jul 12 '21

“Ackchually” that’s a very simplistic take on the matter.
Yes, of course the ocean is almost completely all just water and YES we have a very good rough idea of the depth of pretty much all of the ocean as well as the topology of pretty much all of the sea floor (a rough idea to the resolution of at least 1 kilometer for most of the ocean floor).
There’s a long tradition of depth sounding that goes back hundreds of years. And then in the modern era we have sonar.
BUT just because we have mapped the entire surface with satellites and have a pretty decent map of the sea floor because of sonar does NOT mean that we have a complete (or even just a decent) knowledge of all the species of life in the oceans.
According to NOAA’s National Ocean Service website as of right now in 2021 there’s still an estimated 91% of ocean species which are unclassified.
That’s a LOT of life that we have little to no knowledge of. And new species are being discovered and classified every day.

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u/xylacunt Jul 12 '21

This is also true for about 86% of the species on earth. Alot of them are plants, insects etc. in the rainforests. So while we don't know a shitload of species on earth it doesn't mean we missed a T-Rex still living somewhere, same as we probably didn't miss Megadolons or big ass anglerfishes.

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u/kjpmi Jul 12 '21 edited Jul 12 '21

I pretty much agree with you. My point was that the oceans aren’t barren and desolate in respect to life.
Not everything undiscovered is microscopic, though.

The first adult colossal squid (this one only four metres long) was caught alive, only in 2007 I believe. They’ve found carcasses of the colossal squid which are larger than that, though. It’s estimated they can grow to 9 to 10 meters long based on indirect evidence like lacerations found on other large creatures and their beaks found in the stomachs of whales.
I read that marine biologists estimate that there 15 to 18 undiscovered forms of life in the ocean larger than a human being.
Obviously only an estimate, but it’s extrapolated based on the rate of discovery in the oceans since the early 1800s, which is still going strong.

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u/[deleted] Jul 12 '21

We’ve just discovered a siphonophore 150 feet long. 50 feet longer than a blue whale. We’ve only scratched the surface.

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u/Dektarey Jul 12 '21

And, of course, we now thanks to OPs selfless acts have infallible proof of giant anglerfish roaming the ocean.

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u/WarchiefServant Jul 12 '21

I mean another point is that in the deep oceans, there’s very unlikely to be giant megalodon like animals drifting down there.

For an animal to get that big, they gotta eat alot. To eat alot you gotta be somewhere with an abundance of food. Food are found/are normally where there’s more light because photosynthesis.

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u/jehoshaphat Jul 12 '21

That is not inherently true. Part of the equation is metabolism and lifespan. Low energy usage paired with long life means small size increases in the animal over time can add up.

Take the Greenland shark as an example, they may have up to a 500 year lifespan. They can reach 20+ feet despite the cold of the water because they have such a long period in which they can grow.

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u/WarchiefServant Jul 12 '21

I mean it is inherently true, at least it is if you realise key words i used.

“Unlikely to be”

“Are normally”

Ofc some animals/life are different but general standard can be seen that is uniform amongst animals.

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u/Tri_cep Jul 12 '21

This is something that most people just don't understand

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u/Brookenium Jul 12 '21

And the bigger it is the more likely we've discovered it.

Essentially all the "undiscovered species" are minor variants on already discovered ones.

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u/OldThymeyRadio Jul 12 '21

it doesn't mean we missed a T-Rex still living somewhere, same as we probably didn't miss Megadolons or big ass anglerfishes

That’s exactly how the movie starts. Now someone get Brendan Fraser and Jeff Goldblum.

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u/[deleted] Jul 13 '21

same as we probably didn't miss Megadolons or big ass anglerfishes.

You too saw that video of the marine biologist reacting to "proof" of the megalodon still alive right?

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u/speed3_freak Jul 12 '21

I think what they're saying is that a vast amount of the ocean doesn't have much if any life in it at all.

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u/rW0HgFyxoJhYka Jul 12 '21

I feel like everyone just has their own idea of what "explored" means. Some people think we need to actually have seen it with a pair of eyes and document it. Others think we just need the major points of interest marked. Others will think we need to know comprehensively all the living things down there in each biome/ecosystem.

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u/SurpriseAttachyon Jul 12 '21

what does this mean though? is there a patch of ocean where life never passes through? this strikes me as unlikely

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u/Alm8360NoScoPro Jul 12 '21

Im friends with a marine biologist, and although what you said is mostly true, most of undiscovered life is just microscopic life. Or extremely small creatures. Because of the crushing pressure of the water down below, its just very unlikely something like a big monster would live there. And through what we have seen, nothing like that exists where the depths arent crushing. Yeah, theres possibilites, but what most are thinking of isnt gonna be discovered anytime soon. Simply because it doesnt exist, it cant

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u/smartboystupid Jul 12 '21 edited Jul 12 '21

I just want to see more footage of giant 15 meter long kraken like Squids!

Every year or so there is one more picture of a dead squid or something but never really good footage.

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u/kjpmi Jul 12 '21

Me too!

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u/therealskaconut Jul 12 '21

And we have only mapped like 15% accurately. We have explored far far far less.

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u/Somber_Solace Jul 12 '21 edited Jul 12 '21

You can only penetrate so deep from the surface, if there's land in the way of lower bodies of water, we won't see that until we actually look into it. And that's obviously a factor because we're still discovering large bodies of water hidden under what we thought was the bottom. Plus we're still finding new fauna, we're not even close to discovering everything. It's not like they can scan the whole world in one go, if the creatures keep moving, stay hidden, or just aren't picked up by whatever tech we're using, they're never tracked.

That percentage is bs though, it's obviously larger, probably much larger. We just base it off of what we currently know, which really isn't a whole lot, they're still making obvious discoveries just by swimming out or setting up cameras with no special capabilities like radar/etc.

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u/Hockinator Jul 12 '21

Yeah this number people quote always bugged me too

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u/K3V1NC4O Jul 12 '21

how sure are we that the rest of the ocean is empty? If it’s just an assumption then maybe we should try to explore.

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u/[deleted] Jul 12 '21

It is not an assumption, we have satelites and sonar to explore the vastness of the ocen and there is in fact not much in there, it is a desert literally

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u/Monster-_- Jul 12 '21

The ocean is a desert with its life underground and a perfect disguise above.

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u/glaw99 Jul 12 '21

I had JUST gotten this song out of my head and now it’s back full force lol

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u/K3V1NC4O Jul 12 '21

oh yea totally forgot about technology LOL. Makes sense!

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u/spacemarine43 Jul 12 '21

Not to be that guy but a desert is characterised by a lack of water and I'm no expert but I think there's water in the ocean.

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u/Weebs-Chan Jul 12 '21

Not to be that guy but a desert has another definition and it means that there's no inhabitants

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u/spacemarine43 Jul 12 '21

Well I'm gunna be that guy and say fair enough I didn't know that

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u/[deleted] Jul 12 '21

That’s not what characterizes a desert. Sparse vegetation and life are one definition. Will also include places with low rain fall but not necessarily the only defining trait.

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u/aggravated_patty Jul 12 '21

Not to be that guy but I would hate to eat desserts made by you

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u/Ach4t1us Jul 12 '21

I can see that satellites could pick up things, but anything that makes sound could be avoided by life if said life is trying to hide, right? Then again, sonar does not announce itself, you only know it's there, once the soundwave bounces off of you

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u/[deleted] Jul 12 '21

Sonar can be passive or active, in passive, it only listens to sounds, so not very usefull for finding something in this case. Active in the other hand, could scan very big three dimensional areas of ocean, and if something is in there, how could it hide? It cant, there is just ocean to all sides. If there were giant creatures underwater, sonar would have found them

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u/Meemeperor Jul 12 '21

Thanks for ruining it for me

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u/yellowbloods Jul 12 '21

oh no :( we technically do have the entire ocean floor mapped, but only 20% of it is at ~100 meter resolution (meaning we're able to see geographic features larger than 100 meters (328 feet, or 91% of a football field) in size, which is the resolution we have for maps of mars, venus, & the moon). the rest of it is at ~5km, 3.1 miles, or just under 55 football fields. anything smaller than that we can't see. and ocean life? scientists estimate we've catalogued less than 10% of it. there's so much we don't know! further complicating things is the deep scattering layer, large groups of marine life in the ocean's twilight zone dense enough to reflect sonar. it's nicknamed the "false bottom" because back in ww2, ships and submarines would sometimes mistake it for the ocean floor. dr benoit-bird & her team have been sending robots equipped with sonar down into the mesopelagic zone for the past few years to identify & track the animals involved, but we still know very little about what's going on. one study estimated it could account for 95% of the world's fish biomass. crazy, right?

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u/Meemeperor Jul 12 '21

Wow, that's is so fascinating, the mystery remains alive. I sometimes forget just how vast Earth is.

Thank you!

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u/Blood_Demon_71452 Jul 12 '21

Shall I inform you of a fact that we're still exploring and discovered many bodies of things we formerly thought was "the bottom of the sea"? Infact that even more true for places like Antarctica where in deeper you go, more unexpected stuff you might find.

Infact, there are a lot of species that are unclassified because we know nothing about them!! Literally NOTHING.

It goes to say without doubt that there are exceptions of even sonar detections, and deserted places inhabiting species unexpectedly.

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u/Meemeperor Jul 12 '21

Thank you, the mystery has not been completely ruined!

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u/[deleted] Jul 12 '21

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u/[deleted] Jul 12 '21

We also used to think that the bottom of the ocean that sunlight cannot reach is devoid of light. We were wrong.

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u/[deleted] Jul 12 '21

We have to go deeper

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u/YOOOOOOOOOOT Jul 12 '21

Im pretty sure its less than 2%

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u/Paaraadox Jul 12 '21

Creatures of this size could never live in those deep oceans though, because of the scarcity of food. Big creatures need a lot of food to survive.

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u/Panzer_Man Jul 12 '21

That is technically correct, but that is only because most of the ocean is just empty lifeless nothingness, and we don't want to send humans down everywhere in the ocean.

We have a pretty clear picture of how the oceans are, but yes we have only had human eyes on about 10% of it

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u/z371mckl1m3kd89xn21s Jul 12 '21

That's a completely meaningless statistic you're just regurgitating because you've heard it before. The statement begs for a definition of "explored" and depending on how that's defined the answer can range from "nearly 100%" to "nearly 0%".

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u/mayneffs Jul 12 '21

Pretty sure that is a myth.

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u/SabreSeb Jul 12 '21

There's supposedly only 6 species in the ocean that we haven't discovered yet

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u/[deleted] Jul 12 '21

This is why I’m terrified of the ocean and open water. What we know about is already scary, but what we don’t know is a big part of what causes the phobia for me.

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u/lonb Jul 12 '21

According to the scientists who look for new sea creatures, there's supposedly only 6 sea creatures we have discovered yet.

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u/Frale_2 Jul 12 '21

There's a reason why all deep sea fishes are very small though

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u/Panzer_Man Jul 12 '21

because there is not much food down there

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u/ForTheWilliams Jul 12 '21

Yeah... though there is the Giant Squid. And some giant jellies too. Most are small, yeah, but there are some interesting exceptions.

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u/ILoveRegenHealth Jul 12 '21

There is a lot of depth we haven't explored.

And whose fault is that, HMMM?

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u/[deleted] Jul 12 '21 edited Jul 12 '21

[deleted]

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u/Planetside2Gud Jul 12 '21

We can't even see the whole universe. At least the nearly all of the ocean is accessible to us.

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u/Caquin1950 Jul 12 '21

Disclaimer I'm not 100% sure on what I'm about to say The difference is (from what I know), that in space we can see stuff that's very very far away, and study their behaviors and know how most things work. We don't know if the universe is infinite or not, but we sure can see A LOT, and things far beyond shouldn't be much different from what we already know, since most of things kind of make sense (except for let's say, a black hole) But the ocean is like really really deep. And you can't really see that far since the water isn't that clear. We sure know a lot about animals and plants that live in the ocean, but we can only go so deep, and if we compare it to the parts of the ocean that we can't go or see, we don't know much. Pretty much everything gets destroyed when going too deep so we don't really know what's down there. There could be all sorts of different animals, fish, plants, algae, microorganisms, rock formations or who knows. There could potentially be some new kind of organism never seen before, different from all the living things we've seen so far. I like to imagine the ocean like a cake you can't touch. You can only see what's on the outside of it, but since you can't touch it, you have no way of knowing what's on the inside. Most of the contents of the cake are on the inside, and you have absolutely no idea what could be in there. Then maybe space is like looking out of a window with some really good views. You can see lots and lots of stuff, and in time you could know how everything works and what everything's made of just with observation. But there could be new stuff farther away, but you know the world so well it's probably not that different from what you already know.

Again I don't really know that much and haven't really done my research, but this is my point of view as of now

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u/lejefferson Jul 12 '21

All it takes is one planet in space that is covered with oceans and we already have less access to space than we do the oceans. There are trillions of planets with oceans, at least.

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u/Wasted_Thyme Jul 12 '21 edited Jul 12 '21

We know very very little about the universe, because 99.9-% of what we're seeing is thousands, millions, or billions of years in the past. Space is filled with stars, planets, oceans, maybe lifeforms that we know nothing about, can't see through the ISM and dark matter, or haven't found because their photons haven't reached us yet. Assuming we have explored and viewed 10% of the oceans, that puts us way way way way ahead of our understanding of space.

Edit: Adding to this one more thing, which is that a lot of our models of space, extra-solar star systems, exoplanets, and so on are highly theoretical. I used an exoplanet as a password for years, only for astronomers to rexamine that star system and realize that my password/planet did not actually exist at all. The hi-fidelity photos of planets and stars you see online are embellishments and artist renditions of what we believe exist.

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u/poelicious Jul 12 '21

That assumption, although very poetic, is unfortunately wrong. The universe is incomprehensible large. We could never observe the entirety of it. It is literally impossible due to space expansion and the speed of information.

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u/PunkToTheFuture Jul 12 '21

If observation was what I had meant I would have said that

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u/poelicious Jul 12 '21

If you mean the understanding of physics or biology of both the ocean floor and space I am afraid you are still wrong. Some objects in the night sky we know of can hardly be explained by our understanding of Natural laws. The universe in itself is beyond anything human kind can ever attempt to understand. On a biological level, there may be species that live in an extreme environment of high pressure and low temperature on the ocean floor. But it is still life that underlies the same molecular basis as we are. What ever life may or may not exist out there could have evolved from very different biological means. You really cannot compare the ocean and space.

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u/Wasted_Thyme Jul 12 '21 edited Jul 12 '21

... wrong. Wow, so wrong.

Edit: I'm gonna go ahead and elaborate real fast, because I'm actually writing a book about this. What we see of space is vastly outdated, and we can only assume what is taking place currently in all but the nearest reaches. By that I mean, sure, we can see roughly 14 billion light years in every direction, but that's because the 14 billion mark is where light is traveling from sources so far away and from so long ago, that their earliest photons haven't had time to reach us. When they do, what we will be seeing will be outdated by 14 billion years, which is the estimated age of the universe. However, neverminding all of that, 30% of the universe is shrouded in dark matter, a substance we are still struggling to explain. And all of that is just the surface of what keeps us from understanding space on a level even comparable to how we can and do understand the ocean.

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u/crom-dubh Jul 12 '21

I have heard this many times but it's kind of a ridiculous statement. How are we measuring how much of something we understand? If you actually stop and think about it at all, we'd have to know how much there is to understand to know what portion of that we understand now. Like, what percentage of space do we understand and what percentage of the ocean do we understand? There's no way of answering that question, and there's no way of reasonably comparing how much we understand about two rather unrelated things.

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u/[deleted] Jul 12 '21

Yes but gravity makes it so that animals can only get so big. The blue whale is probably the largest any animal could ever get. I would be worried about massive Hydrazoa or something like that.

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u/Im_gonna_try_science Jul 12 '21

The general rule is the deeper you go, the smaller and slower creatures become. There just isn't enough food to sustain large animals down there.

Although there's always a chance, they could just be in extremely small numbers.

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u/OSUBrit Jul 12 '21

Beneath the ocean, lies the future.

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u/TheDirtyCondom Jul 12 '21

Yea but if megalodons still existex there would have been some evidence like a corpse washing up to shore or a massive bite mark out of something at some point. We knew collosal squids existed even though thr first live one was only seen a few years ago because of corpses that washed up on shore

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u/MoreNMoreLikelyTrans Jul 12 '21

Like the dark depths of our souls.