Mystery Solved: NOAA's "Golden Orb" Found Off Alaska Finally Identified

A mysterious golden object that captivated scientists and the public when it was discovered on the floor of the Gulf of Alaska more than two years ago has finally been identified. The answer, scientists say, is stranger than most of the guesses.

What Was the Golden Orb?

On August 30, 2023, the remotely operated vehicle Deep Discoverer — deployed from the NOAA Ship Okeanos Explorer during the agency's Seascape Alaska 5 expedition — was navigating more than two miles below the ocean's surface when it came across something no one expected: a golden, dome-shaped object about four inches across, with a small hole near its base, stuck to a rocky outcropping.

The object glowed on the video feed in a way that stopped scientists in their tracks. Initial guesses from the research team included an egg mass, a sponge, and a microbial film. None of them were right.

The orb was collected and transported to NOAA Fisheries' National Systematics Laboratory at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C., where scientists began the painstaking work of figuring out what it actually was.