Life WITHOUT SUN: What They Found on the Ocean Floor
At the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, at a depth of more than 2,500 meters, there is a place where life shouldn't exist.
There is no sunlight. The pressure is hundreds of atmospheres. The water temperature near the vents reaches hundreds of degrees. Columns of black mineral smoke—black smokers—erupt from cracks in the ocean floor.
And creatures live right around them.
Giant tube worms without a mouth or stomach. Blind shrimp. Crabs found nowhere else on Earth. Bacteria that feed not on light, but on chemicals.
In this video, we explore how hydrothermal vents have changed our understanding of life, why their 1977 discovery revolutionized biology—and what this suggests about the possibility of life on Europa and Enceladus.
This is the story of a place where life exists without the Sun.
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