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00:23Under a desert sun, the Red Sea appears lifeless.
00:30Hemmed in by dunes and searing heat, a tectonic scar between Africa and Arabia, the Red Sea
00:43has long carried cultures, commerce, and beliefs between worlds, but hidden below the surface
00:55is something entirely different.
01:08The youngest sea on Earth, still forming, yet already bursting with colour, structure,
01:20and life.
01:23Here are creatures few have ever seen, and deep sea landscapes only now coming into focus.
01:37With one of the most advanced research vessels on the planet, we can now enter these alien
01:46worlds, and illuminate habitats never before seen by human eyes.
01:57Aboard the Ocean Explorer, world-leading scientists are exploring the deep in ways unimaginable,
02:06just one generation ago.
02:10Above them, one of the busiest shipping lanes on Earth.
02:1512% of global trade moves through these waters.
02:20But beneath the surface lies something far more fragile.
02:27Never has there been a more urgent time to understand what lies beneath one of the most
02:33extreme marine environments on Earth.
02:39In this mission, we journey from the shallow coral labyrinths of the Farasan banks in the
02:44south, to the brine-filled abyss of the Gulf of Aqaba in the north.
02:56Exploring a sea where species find rare sanctuary.
03:05And others survive at the very edge of what life can endure.
03:16Welcome to one of the last great secrets of the ocean.
03:25Welcome to the Red Sea.
03:29You're my Horizons.
03:35This is me.
03:37You're welcome.
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04:04At the southern edge of the Red Sea lies a place few have ever seen in full.
04:13The Farasan banks, an immense tangle of coral and islands, stretching for hundreds of kilometres.
04:28A hidden maze in turquoise shallows.
04:34Even today, these waters remain poorly charted.
04:38Some navigational maps haven't been updated since the 1800s.
04:48Here, exploration still means discovery.
05:04From the sky, the reefs form patterns too vast to grasp from sea level.
05:10Shallow ledges, steep drop-offs, entire systems shaped by time and geological movement.
05:22And it hasn't stopped.
05:24The Red Sea is still growing, widening by nearly a centimetre each year.
05:30Few places reveal the legacy of this restless geology more vividly than here.
05:40Where ancient reefs and shifting sea floor meet in a maze of islands and shores.
06:10Now, thanks to modern surveys, a new map is beginning to take shape.
06:23And beneath the surface, life reveals itself.
06:54This is a new world.
06:57This is a new world, and upon first glance, a calm one.
07:03Schools of fish twist and scatter through shafts of sunlight.
07:09Clownfish hover in anemones, quietly territorial.
07:16Jellyfish spiral gently on the current, unhurried, unaware, utterly at home.
07:28Here, everything depends on coral, and every crevice is clean.
07:39But these aren't ordinary reefs.
07:41Even here, where the water is hotter, saltier, and harsher than almost anywhere else, life takes hold.
07:58Which is why scientists come here, to understand what survival might look like for coral reefs elsewhere in a warming
08:05world.
08:11What they find is astonishing. Coral so dense, so healthy, it looks untouched.
08:19A living reef that seems to resist the heat.
08:31To understand why, samples are collected.
08:36Tiny fragments that may hold the key to survival.
08:42In the ocean explorer's floating lab, the coral samples reveal a pattern.
08:50The secret may lie in the algae.
08:54Tiny tenants living deep inside the coral's tissue, now showing signs of heat adaptation.
09:04It's one of the ocean's most delicate partnerships.
09:09And it may be the reason this reef survives, while others fade.
09:16In most oceans, heat breaks the bond.
09:19The algae, the very thing that brought colour, is expelled.
09:24And bleaching takes hold.
09:28And bleaching takes hold.
09:28But here, the bond holds.
09:33If the scientists are right, this place holds a blueprint.
09:39Evidence that reefs can endure in a changing world.
09:43And with every sample studied, we move closer to solutions that could safeguard coral reefs across the planet.
09:51For generations to come.
10:06But coral, sometimes unwillingly, can end up somewhere unexpected.
10:21But coral, sometimes unwillingly, can end up somewhere unexpected.
10:26A fleeting moment of curiosity.
10:31But nearby, in the Egyptian Red Sea, something more deliberate is unfolding.
10:40In these warm shallows, Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphins have been seen doing something unusual.
10:55As they press and glide, the reef responds.
11:00Shedding mucus rich with antibacterial and healing properties.
11:06A natural balm.
11:08A pharmacy beneath the waves.
11:14Juveniles watch and copy, learning when and where to rub.
11:21Belly.
11:23Back.
11:24Tail.
11:27The reef stains their skin green or yellow.
11:31A signature of contact.
11:35It looks like play.
11:37It looks like ritual.
11:39And in a way, it is.
11:43A learned behavior.
11:46A culture passed from fin to fin.
11:50And perhaps, a glimpse of medicine in its most ancient form.
12:00Leaving the sunlit shallows behind, the ocean explorer heads north along the reef edge, into deeper, darker waters.
12:13Revealing a new frontier of ledges, canyons, and uniquely deep geological features.
12:24What lies below has never been seen by human eyes.
12:33To explore it requires a submersible.
12:39A pressurized capsule built for slow, steady descent.
12:47Its lights pierce the darkness like search beams, scanning the unknown.
12:54As the surface disappears above, pressure builds, and sunlight fades.
13:01The world grows darker.
13:04Until only water, rock, and the strange life of the deep remain.
13:15Pale structures emerge from the gloom.
13:22Growing in near darkness.
13:25Holding its form against the weight of the sea.
13:38This is the mesophotic zone.
13:45Where light barely reaches, and yet corals still endure.
13:53Here, corals grow slowly, stretching upwards to catch the last scattered light.
14:06Around them, fish move with quiet purpose.
14:11Sheltering in the branches of this deep water haven.
14:16Scientists believe these deep reefs could act as a refuge.
14:20A fallback.
14:22As warming seas devastate the shallows above.
14:28Studying them requires delicate care.
14:42Red light is often used instead of white.
14:46It's gentler on the corals, and truer to the world these animals inhabit.
14:52Every sample, every scan, is a step towards understanding how reefs survive the dark.
15:00And whether in a warming world, the deep can protect what the light can no longer hold.
15:20The scientific team aboard the Ocean Explorer collects water from the deep to the shallows.
15:32In each sample, a hidden world.
15:40Microscopic drifters that form the base of every marine food chain.
15:47They're easy to miss, but they are the foundation of life on Earth.
15:51And without them, the ocean collapses.
15:56There are two main kinds.
16:00Phytoplankton.
16:01Plant-like, photosynthetic, and sun-loving.
16:05They drift near the surface, absorbing light and releasing oxygen into the sea and the air we breathe.
16:18Zooplankton, on the other hand, are tiny animals that feed on phytoplankton.
16:24Among them are copepods, most just one to two millimetres long.
16:29And likely the most numerous animals on Earth.
16:36Scientists estimate there could be up to one septillion of them drifting through the oceans right now.
16:43Together, possibly outweighing all other animals in the ocean, combined.
16:53The Red Sea is low in nutrients.
16:57But here, plankton thrive.
17:01Efficient, resilient, and finely tuned to survive in extremes.
17:09As climate change pushes other oceans towards similar extremes, this place becomes a warning and a blueprint.
17:19By decoding how plankton survive here, scientists can predict which ecosystems might collapse, and which might adapt.
17:30In a changing world, that knowledge could be the difference between life and loss.
17:42As the Red Sea narrows, the seafloor begins to fall away.
17:48The ocean explorer now enters its central rift.
17:53The sea floor plunges over 3,000 metres, forming steep-sided valleys that were carved around 30 million years ago,
18:04by the pulling apart of continents.
18:15What comes next is a descent into the unknown.
18:24What comes next?
18:25Down to depths beyond 600 metres.
18:32Here, sunlight fades, pressure rises, and sound becomes more important than sight.
18:44For a long time, there is only silence.
18:47And the submersible's light feeling out into the darkness.
18:57At this depth, the pressure is 60 times greater than on the surface.
19:04But even here, life can bloom in the black.
19:18Lanternfish, one of the most abundant animals on Earth.
19:27They drift and flicker through the deep.
19:30Each one lit by organs of bioluminescence called photophores.
19:42Together, they create a living galaxy, suspended in the deep.
19:55A hidden phenomenon, now brought into view in the Red Sea.
20:04These lanternfish are part of the deep scattering layer.
20:09A migrating cloud of life that moves with the turning of the Earth.
20:18Every night, a billion tons of sea creatures rise from the deep ocean to search for food near the surface.
20:30Triggering one of the largest migrations of life that takes place on our planet.
20:48It's so dense, it even reflects sound.
20:52During World War II, sonar operators were baffled when they saw the seabed rising.
20:59But what they were detecting wasn't rock.
21:02It was life.
21:05The deep scattering layer is never still.
21:09Organisms rise to feed under cover of darkness.
21:13Then vanish to safer depths by dawn.
21:18This daily migration regulates the ocean's food web.
21:22Sustaining predators from the shallows to the deep.
21:28Witnessing it provides new clues about how the deep ocean sustains life.
21:55This manned submersible can take humans down a thousand meters.
22:02This manned submersible can take humans down a thousand meters.
22:03When the explorer reaches the Gulf of Aqaba at the northeastern tip of the Red Sea.
22:08The depths are twice that.
22:16So, a remotely operated vehicle, or ROV for short, must be deployed to explore these uncharted waters.
22:35The ROV drops into a deep scar in the Earth's crust, where the sea floor lies 6,000 feet down,
22:46carved by the slow grinding of tectonic plates.
22:55After nearly eight hours of careful piloting, at depths close to 2,000 meters, the screen begins to change.
23:10The water thickens.
23:13Visibility drops.
23:15A haze appears.
23:18The risk of entanglement is high.
23:22So extreme caution is required.
23:28But on the screen, movement.
23:36The ROV's lights reveal a shimmering layer.
23:40A surface.
23:42A lake at the bottom of the sea.
23:54A brine pool.
23:57Not just salt water.
23:59This is the remnant of an ancient sea.
24:05Sealed beneath the seabed for millions of years.
24:11Now ruptured.
24:15Exposed.
24:17And shimmering.
24:21It's among the most extreme environments on Earth.
24:26Earth.
24:30Formed when ancient seas evaporated.
24:34Leaving dense salt deposits now dissolved and sealed under pressure so intense.
24:40It's almost 200 times what we feel on land.
24:49They are rare windows into the chemistry of Earth's past.
24:54And perhaps, its distant future.
25:03And yet, at the edge, life clings on.
25:09Living on a knife edge.
25:14Anything that sinks into the brine is lost.
25:19Preserved in stillness.
25:21As if time itself stops below the surface.
25:36Red shrimp gather right at the boundary.
25:39Living on stunned or dead animals that ventured too deep.
25:52In the murk, a shrimp in search of food edges too far.
25:59Instinct kicks in.
26:13The Red Sea is already one of the harshest marine environments on Earth.
26:19But the brine pools push it further.
26:22Creating conditions too extreme for almost all life.
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27:14The seascape begins to change.
27:24Where once there was a flat plain, now towers rise from the sea floor.
27:37Mineral chimneys formed by the superheated fluids seeping from below.
27:47They vent methane, oil, gases that should choke life.
27:59And yet each tower is coated in microbial mats, colonies of organisms feeding not on light,
28:08but on chemistry.
28:12Here, in total darkness, life thrives without photosynthesis.
28:23These are extremophiles.
28:30Microbes evolved to survive in the most toxic waters on Earth.
28:40No sunlight, no oxygen, just heat, metal and salt.
28:55Still, the system works.
29:05Microbes feed on methane and sulfur, and in turn they feed others.
29:11Shrimp and crabs crawl across the chimneys, clinging to life where almost nothing should survive.
29:23It's a world powered by chemical reactions.
29:31A biological engine, like the one that may have sparked the very first life on Earth.
29:41Scientists believe these environments may resemble early Earth.
29:47And perhaps distant worlds, Europa, Enceladus, places where oceans lie beneath ice.
30:03The ROV carefully extracts samples from the chimney walls.
30:09They are delicate, toxic and alive.
30:29They are carrying back fragments of a world few imagined could exist.
30:43Midway through the expedition, the sonar picks up something strange.
30:51An interruption in the smooth desert of the sea floor.
30:58A bump 100 metres long and rising 30 metres tall.
31:13At around 850 metres, the ROV's lights cut through the darkness.
31:26It's the Pella, a ship that sank in 2011 while en route to the Egyptian port of Neweber.
31:38It's eerily calm until something stirs in the shadows.
32:06A legend from the deal.
32:10And stranger still, they don't know what species it is.
32:17Squid of this size aren't thought to live in waters so warm.
32:22The answer, a giant purpleback flying squid.
32:27Rarely recorded.
32:30And almost never seen alive.
32:35A flourish of ink curls through the water.
32:39A signature left in the dark.
32:43It's a breathtaking moment.
32:46Offering new insight into the mysterious and diverse life that thrives in the unexplored depths of the Red Sea.
32:58And from the dark, a shape returns.
33:19In just a few decades, some shark populations have collapsed by over 90%.
33:29The cause?
33:31Us.
33:32Overfishing, long lines and illegal catch all take their toll.
33:41But there may still be strongholds here.
33:44We just need to find them.
33:48The search turns physical.
33:50Now, the bait is readied.
34:00E-DNA gives clues.
34:04But to see the sharks themselves, a closer look is required.
34:11The submersible descends again.
34:16This time not to explore, but to wait.
34:40The bait is set.
34:41Now, it's time to wait.
34:48Hours pass.
34:50Fish swirl past the lens.
34:55Shadows come and go.
34:59Then, movement.
35:06Then another.
35:12Scalloped hammerhead.
35:15Rare and unmistakable.
35:33Each one leaves behind its trace.
35:39More data.
35:42More clues.
35:46A window into a world rarely seen.
35:52Understanding where sharks still thrive is key to knowing where they can be protected.
36:09And it's a sign, however fragile, that in the deep waters of the Red Sea.
36:15Sharks might still have a future.
36:26With their work on E-DNA complete.
36:29The team turns to the giants of the sea.
36:48The Red Sea holds more than coral.
36:52It is a sanctuary for some of the most extraordinary creatures on Earth.
36:58Earth.
37:00From above, the sea stretches vast and endless.
37:05But the clues are there.
37:09But the clues are there.
37:12Ripples.
37:14Splashes.
37:15And disturbance.
37:19Over 1,700 kilometers of coastline they search.
37:27Then, movement.
37:36A Brutus whale.
37:41One of the few great whales to live year-round in warm seas.
37:48Sleek, torpedo-shaped, and up to 14 meters long.
38:05But here, a nursery.
38:08A mother and her calf.
38:10Hidden in plain sight.
38:15These nurseries are rare windows into how whales begin life at sea.
38:28Here, the waters are calm.
38:31Sheltered.
38:32A place where young whales grow.
38:36And mothers can rest.
38:40A calm refuge from the dangers of the open sea.
38:45Each sighting like this helps to plug a black hole in our knowledge.
38:51About their rarity.
38:53Their range.
38:55And the roles they play in this ecosystem.
39:00Each encounter is more than data.
39:04It's a reminder.
39:06The giants of the Red Sea are still here.
39:10If we choose to look.
39:22They've glided through coral for over a hundred million years.
39:30But now, the hawksbill turtle faces its greatest threat.
39:40Us.
39:47Once common across the tropics, hawksbill numbers have plummeted by more than 80%.
39:55Their shell, prized for tortoiseshell ornaments, drove a slaughter that nearly wiped them out.
40:05Today, fewer than 25,000 nesting females remain worldwide.
40:11And in the Red Sea, every survivor matters.
40:19Here, these turtles are reef guardians.
40:23Grazing on sponges.
40:25Carving space for coral to grow.
40:32Without them, sponges take over.
40:36Reefs collapse.
40:39And the food web falters.
40:43But even in this relative refuge, the dangers melt.
40:49Ghost nets tangle flippers.
40:55Plastic bags choke stomachs.
41:00Beaches vanish.
41:05And the reefs they depend on bleach and die.
41:11The team's final mission is to track these turtles.
41:16To understand where they live and how to protect them.
41:25From the deck,
41:26eyes scan the water.
41:30The moment a turtle surfaces, they dive.
41:42A hawksbill is gently brought aboard.
42:11A satellite tag is carefully attached.
42:15A lightweight transmitter that will map every dive, every journey, and every hidden reef.
42:33The turtle is released.
42:38Tagged, but unharmed.
42:41A fragment of the reef's future.
42:45Swimming away.
42:48This is the first time hawksbill turtles have been satellite tagged in the Red Sea.
42:56Every signal it sends will help define marine protection zones.
43:02Every journey charted is a step toward conservation.
43:12Because losing even one species, just one, is a fracture in the reef.
43:19And parts of this reef are already at breaking point.
43:25But if we act now, if we listen and learn, there may still be time to save what remains.
43:42The ocean is the largest ecosystem on Earth.
43:48Vast, ancient, and still largely unknown.
43:56And within it, the Red Sea is something rare.
44:00A crucible of extremes.
44:06Hotter.
44:08Saltier.
44:11More hostile.
44:13A place where life has been forced to adapt or disappear.
44:24Here, the ocean explorer has revealed what survival looks like on the edge.
44:36But the Red Sea is just one part of a much greater whole.
44:43Across our planet, we've explored only a fraction of the ocean.
44:48And protected even less.
44:56To save it, we must first understand it.
45:00This is just one sea.
45:02On one planet.
45:04In one moment in time.
45:18But what we learn here about resilience, adaptation, survival, could echo far beyond.
45:35If we act now, we can protect its future.
45:45Not just for the ocean, but for all of us.
45:50Take care.
46:09The Nights at the source.