Exploring The Arctic Undersea
Mars Attacks! But why are they invading the seas around Bear Island? True, it is a spectacular place, wreathed in billowing fog banks, through which the sun breaks like a miracle of warmth and light. Its shores, guarded by towering sea cliffs and pinnacles, are graced by clouds of swirling seabirds and painted emerald and orange with mosses and lichens. But its strategic value to invaders from the red planet seems limited at best. Perhaps this is not a vanguard of a conquering armada but an intrepid explorer like ourselves, sent to investigate the wonders of the arctic seas in the spirit of science.
Of course, this amazing little creature is not truly an extraterrestrial, but just as much a native of Earth as you and I. Still, there is no doubt that it inhabits an alien world, drifting on the currents of the polar seas around this lonely island. Looking into this strange realm, our probes and dry-suited aquanauts return with images that are at least as otherworldly as anything yet discovered in the outer reaches of the solar system. There is no doubt that this world teems with life, and what mystifying, astounding life it is. Organisms of so many shapes and forms, remarkable colors and textures, weird and wild behaviors, the sheer variety can be quite overwhelming.
The little inner space traveler we are observing today is a hydromedusa, the free-swimming phase in the life cycle of an animal related to fire corals. In this part of its life it floats freely in the currents, feeding on smaller plankton. Along the way, it may reproduce sexually by releasing gametes into the waters around it. These reproductive cells, once fertilized, will develop into larvae which will settle onto the bottom and grow into the polyp phase. These appear to be very different animals, often a colony of associated individuals that live attached to the substrate and may reproduce asexually, one budding from the side of another. In both phases the animals feed by capturing prey using their tentacles which are armed with pneumatocysts, incredible toxic hypodermic cells, barbed like harpoons, coiled and ready like microscopic explosives. Surely no science fiction author could invent a stranger species! Come to Svalbard and explore the universe!
Mars Attacks! But why are they invading the seas around Bear Island? True, it is a spectacular place, wreathed in billowing fog banks, through which the sun breaks like a miracle of warmth and light. Its shores, guarded by towering sea cliffs and pinnacles, are graced by clouds of swirling seabirds and painted emerald and orange with mosses and lichens. But its strategic value to invaders from the red planet seems limited at best. Perhaps this is not a vanguard of a conquering armada but an intrepid explorer like ourselves, sent to investigate the wonders of the arctic seas in the spirit of science.
Of course, this amazing little creature is not truly an extraterrestrial, but just as much a native of Earth as you and I. Still, there is no doubt that it inhabits an alien world, drifting on the currents of the polar seas around this lonely island. Looking into this strange realm, our probes and dry-suited aquanauts return with images that are at least as otherworldly as anything yet discovered in the outer reaches of the solar system. There is no doubt that this world teems with life, and what mystifying, astounding life it is. Organisms of so many shapes and forms, remarkable colors and textures, weird and wild behaviors, the sheer variety can be quite overwhelming.
The little inner space traveler we are observing today is a hydromedusa, the free-swimming phase in the life cycle of an animal related to fire corals. In this part of its life it floats freely in the currents, feeding on smaller plankton. Along the way, it may reproduce sexually by releasing gametes into the waters around it. These reproductive cells, once fertilized, will develop into larvae which will settle onto the bottom and grow into the polyp phase. These appear to be very different animals, often a colony of associated individuals that live attached to the substrate and may reproduce asexually, one budding from the side of another. In both phases the animals feed by capturing prey using their tentacles which are armed with pneumatocysts, incredible toxic hypodermic cells, barbed like harpoons, coiled and ready like microscopic explosives. Surely no science fiction author could invent a stranger species! Come to Svalbard and explore the universe!
