Scientists Solve Mystery of NOAA 'Golden Orb' Found in Deep Alaskan Waters

TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - In 2023, scientists operating a remote vehicle for a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) exploration spotted a mysterious "golden orb" in deep Alaskan waters.

At the time, the device was about 3,250 meters underwater when the "strange, golden, mound-shaped object with a hole in it" was seen "stuck to a rock," according to NOAA, as quoted from CBS News on Friday.

Now, the mystery has been solved. After two and a half years and a series of multi-layered studies, scientists have determined that the golden mass discovered in the Gulf of Alaska is a "remnant of the dead cells that formed at the base of a giant deep-sea anemone, Relicanthus daphneae."

It was no easy feat for scientists to arrive at this conclusion. "We work on hundreds of different samples and I suspected that our routine processes would clarify the mystery," zoologist Allen Collins of NOAA Fisheries' National Systematics Laboratory said, as quoted from Science Alert.

"But this turned into a special case that required focused efforts and expertise of several different individuals. This was a complex mystery that required morphological, genetic, deep-sea, and bioinformatics expertise to solve."

According to NOAA in a statement, the scientists working with NOAA Fisheries and the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History used an integrative taxonomic approach combining a study of its physical structure with genetic analysis to identify the "golden orb."

Scientists found that the object wasn't an animal, but a "fibrous material" covered with stinging cells (cnidocytes), typically found in corals and anemones. The specific cnidocytes found in the blob were spirocysts, which are found only in the Hexacorallia class of cnidarians. 

Scientists then conducted superficial DNA testing on the object found by the remote-controlled Deep Discoverer launched from NOAA ship Okeanos Explorer. But initial barcoding was inconclusive, since the blob was "riddled with other microscopic organisms."

But whole-genome sequencing showed that the specimen was "genetically almost identical" to Relicanthus daphneae, a kind of cnidarian first described in 2006.

The blob is found to be a cuticle left behind by the deep-sea giant anemone. The cuticle is a thin, multilayered coating secreted by the outer tissues of some anemones, forming flexible, sheet-like structures that can detach and remain on the seafloor.

Science Alert noted that the sheer volume of microorganisms found on the NOAA "golden orb" suggests it may act as a microscale hotspot of microbial activity, where microbes feed on and break down the decaying tissue.

"So often in deep ocean exploration, we find these captivating mysteries, like the 'golden orb,'" said NOAA Ocean Exploration acting director William Mowitt. "With advanced techniques like DNA sequencing, we are able to solve more and more of them."

"This is why we keep exploring—to unlock the secrets of the deep and better understand how the ocean and its resources can drive economic growth, strengthen our national security, and sustain our planet," Mowitt said.

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