The nearly 3-year-old mystery of the golden orb has been solved.
The object is not an egg, a sponge or remnants of a space alien but a relic of a deep-sea anemone, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration concluded.
Scientists have determined that the golden mass, discovered at a depth of more than 2 miles in the Gulf of Alaska in 2023, is a remnant of dead cells that formed at the base of a giant deep-sea anemone, known as Relicanthus daphneae. It was the part of the anemone that attached to rock.
In 2023, researchers at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) discovered an unidentified object – later described as a golden orb – while using remotely operated vehicles to scour the seafloor as part of a larger expedition to record and study areas never before been seen by humans.
While gliding the device over a rocky outcrop 2 miles underwater, team members aboard a NOAA ship came across what one of them initially described as a "yellow hat." But upon closer inspection, the object attached to a rock appeared "smooth, gold (and) dome-shaped," NOAA said in a news release.
