Searching for Source of Life

Imagine yourself inside a Mini Cooper–sized rocket. Try not to bump into either of the two other crewmembers or any of the computers, buttons, and joysticks that will help steer your course.

- Brittany Moya del Pino

CAN CREATURES LIVING INSIDE OUR PLANET’S CRUST HELP US FIND WHAT MIGHT BE SWIMMING IN SPACE?

Little beeps and whizzing sounds come from electronics inside the circular cabin, while the world outside has a thick, eerie silence, and the view from the portholes is black, except for small blobs of light that surround you like millions of greenish stars.

This is what it’s like to be on a submarine named Alvin, about 200 miles (322 km) off the coast of Washington. Even though Alvin is diving toward the center of Earth rather than rocketing away from it, the purpose of this trip has more in common with space exploration than you might think. Alvin’s crew is studying how ancient creatures survive, like an alien community, in waterlogged rocks beneath the ocean floor.

Journeying toward the Center of the Earth

“You feel like you’re in a different world,” says Mike Rappé, a marine microbiologist who has been down in Alvin three times during the last 10 years. He explains that those tiny glowing points visible from Alvin’s portholes are actually bioluminescent creatures—and the deep ocean is full of them. “You can see crazy stuff, like a swimming centipede looking thing or something that looks like a daddy longlegs crawling through the water, creatures that make you wonder, has anyone in science actually described that?” Unfortunately, he doesn’t have time to find out.