A colorful creature, lit up like a children's toy with its tentacles extended in all directions like sunrays, has been spotted swimming the world's deepest ocean trench.
Scientists discovered the hydromedusa jellyfish on April 24, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reports. It likely belongs to the genus Crossota, a classification of jellyfish that spend their entire lives gliding through the water, bypassing others' stationary phase.
The ethereal creature was captured on video as it swam about 2 miles below the surface of the sea by "Okeanos Explorer," a NOAA ship that discharges remotely operated vehicles into deep waters, and uses a hull-mounted, multibeam sonar to explore and map the sea.
This discovery of a totally new jellyfish underscores just how much is left to learn about the ocean, a big part of the reason the Okeanos crew is on a three-year mission to explore US marine protected areas in the central and western Pacific.
