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NOAA scientists deciphered the mystery of a golden ball collected in the ocean in the Gulf of Alaska in 2023, and DNA sequencing revealed that the object was the dead base of a giant anemone of the species Relicanthus daphneae attached to the rocks at 3.2 kilometers.
The golden ball that went viral on social media and challenged researchers for over two years finally had its origin revealed as a giant anemone by a DNA sequencing study published on Tuesday (21). The object, located on the ocean floor at over 3.2 kilometers deep in the Gulf of Alaska by a remotely operated vehicle during the Seascape Alaska 5 mission in 2023, had a rounded appearance, golden coloration, and a small hole, and was attached to a rock on the ocean bed. The unusual appearance of the ball generated various hypotheses among experts: could it be an egg capsule, a dead sponge, or something completely unknown to science?
The answer required collaboration from professionals across multiple fields. In addition to the NOAA team, the investigation of the golden ball mobilized experts from the National Museum of Natural History, managed by the Smithsonian Institution, and required analyses that combined morphology, genetics, knowledge of deep-sea ecosystems, and bioinformatics. Allen Collins, director of the NOAA National Systematics Laboratory, described the case as a complex puzzle that required focused efforts and varied skills to solve, a classification that explains why the identification took more than two years to be completed.
What the golden ball really was according to DNA
Genetic sequencing solved the mystery. The golden ball is actually a mass composed of dead tissue from a giant deep-sea anemone belonging to the species Relicanthus daphneae, a marine organism that can reach considerable sizes and lives attached to rocky formations in the depths of the ocean. What scientists collected was the base of the animal, the structure that kept it attached to the rock, composed of biological tissue that, after the organism’s death, took on the golden and spherical appearance that confused researchers.
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The path to this conclusion involved progressive stages of analysis. First, researchers identified in the ball characteristic stinging cells of cnidarians, a zoological group that includes corals, jellyfish, and anemones, which already ruled out hypotheses that the object was mineral or artificial. Next, complete genome sequencing confirmed that the genetic material present in the structure was almost identical to that of Relicanthus daphneae already cataloged by science, eliminating any doubt about the origin of the ball and ending two years of speculation.
Why the golden ball confused scientists for so long
The difficulty of identification was not due to incompetence, but to the extreme conditions of the environment where the ball was found. At 3.2 kilometers deep, in total darkness and under pressure hundreds of times greater than at the surface, marine organisms take on forms that do not resemble anything that terrestrial biology offers as a reference. A living giant anemone at the bottom of the ocean looks completely different from the dead base it leaves behind when it perishes, and without the intact animal for comparison, only the golden ball remained as evidence.
The golden coloration also contributed to the confusion. Decomposing biological tissues on the ocean floor rarely exhibit this hue, and the almost perfect spherical shape of the ball suggested something manufactured or at least geologically shaped, not an organic residue. The hole present in the structure further fueled theories: some researchers speculated that something had come out from inside the ball, as if it were an egg from which a creature had hatched, a hypothesis that DNA ultimately ruled out by confirming that it was an anemone material and not a reproductive envelope.
What the Relicanthus daphneae is and why it surprised scientists
The species identified by the DNA of the golden ball is one of the most enigmatic anemones ever cataloged. Relicanthus daphneae inhabits extreme depths of the ocean, attaches to rocky substrates, and can reach significant size compared to shallow-water anemones, characteristics that make it difficult to study because it lives in regions accessible only by unmanned submersibles. The fact that a golden ball found by chance during an exploratory expedition turned out to be part of this species illustrates how much of the deep ocean remains unknown.
The discovery adds valuable data on the species’ geographical distribution. Before the NOAA’s analysis of the sphere, the presence of Relicanthus daphneae in the Gulf of Alaska was not as well documented, and the finding expands the occurrence map of this organism in abyssal depths. For marine biologists, every fragment of information about deep-sea species is relevant because the environment is so vast and so little explored that even accidental encounters like this can represent significant advances in understanding oceanic biodiversity.
What the golden sphere reveals about how much we still don’t know about the ocean
Captain William Mowitt, NOAA’s Director of Ocean Exploration, stated that the investigation of the sphere is an example of why deep ocean exploration needs to continue. Advanced techniques like DNA sequencing allow NOAA to decipher mysteries that a generation ago would have been classified as inexplicable, and every expedition to the seafloor produces encounters with organisms, formations, and phenomena that science has not yet cataloged. If a golden structure attached to a rock 3,200 meters deep took two years and nine scientists to identify, the volume of what remains unexplained in the oceans is unimaginable.
The story of the golden sphere serves as a reminder that the seafloor is the least explored environment on the planet. More than 80% of the global ocean floor has never been mapped in high resolution, and species like Relicanthus daphneae represent a tiny fraction of the biodiversity that likely exists in depths where sunlight never reaches. The sphere that intrigued the internet and mobilized laboratories was merely the dead base of an anemone, but the path to reaching that answer revealed as much about the limits of human knowledge as it did about the animal that produced it.
And you, would you have bet the golden sphere was an anemone remnant or would you have guessed something more exotic? Do you think we should invest more in ocean exploration? Leave your opinion in the comments.
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