A Deep Sea Camera Recorded Life at 36,000 Feet and Scientists Are Baffled

More people have walked on the moon than have reached the bottom of the Mariana Trench. It is seven miles down, darker and more crushing than anywhere else on Earth, and for most of the twentieth century everyone assumed it was a lifeless desert. The logic seemed airtight. No sunlight, almost no food, pressure that flattens steel. Nothing could thrive there. But a decade of footage from baited deep-sea cameras has shown the opposite. The trench is not empty. It is crowded, active, and full of creatures pushing the chemistry of life to its absolute edge. And most of that footage, almost nobody has seen.