Two miles beneath the Gulf of Alaska, where sunlight never reaches and pressure crushes anything fragile, a small golden dome clung to a rock. Discovered in August 2023, the strange object quickly puzzled scientists and the internet alike. For more than two years, no one could say what it was.

Now, researchers from NOAA and the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History have solved the mystery. The so-called “golden orb” is not an alien egg or unknown species. It is the leftover base of a rare deep-sea anemone known as Relicanthus daphneae.

The object was first spotted during NOAA’s........

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