Deep down in the ocean, far below where most humans have gone, there’s an unexplored world of glowing sea creatures and mysterious environments that scientists are desperate to study.

To reach these depths – and explore them safely – researchers rely on hi-tech, space-age equipment like the Exosuit, the latest version of which a New York researcher recently tested at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts.

John Sparks, curator-in-charge at the American Museum of Natural History’s department of ichthyology, studies bioluminescence in fish, and hopes to use the suit in an upcoming expedition to get closer to the fish than ever before.



Only a handful of scientists have used the suit, which is the envy of the oceanographic world. “Everybody’s jealous – I keep getting emails – ‘Oh you get to use that!’” Sparks told the Guardian. “It’s like a superhero suit, you know?”



Instead of soaring through the skies, Sparks will be able to use the suit’s 1.6 horsepower water jet thrusters and foot controls to propel the more than 530lb suit through open water, down to deep reefs and deep water – the latter two being areas that are traditionally difficult to reach by submarines and traditional scuba diving equipment.

John Sparks hopes to use the Exosuit to study bioluminescence in fish. Photograph: ©AMNH/R. Mickens Photograph: ©AMNH/R. Mickens

Click through to the natural history museum to read about the suit. Photograph: /Amnh

“My interest in using the suit is not only open-water stuff down the road, out in the dark, collecting bioluminescent things, which will be great for our research, but also using it to collect on real deep reefs, getting the face of the suit right up against the reef, almost lying down in the rubble and kind of picking through it for fish,” Sparks said.

The Exosuit is an atmospheric suit, which means it keeps the same pressure, like being in a submarine, up to a maximum depth of 1,000 feet (305 metres).

“In a normal submersible, you're kind of just sitting inside a sphere, and you can’t really reach out into the environment other than being some kind of robotic arm or something,” Sparks said. “This is much more tactile, and much more manoeuvrable than that would be.”

Traditionally, technology limits have capped the amount of time researchers could stay in deep-water environments, which means less time to observe and record fish in their natural environments. With the Exosuit, however, Sparks and other researchers have more time to observe fish and record their bioluminescent flashing behaviours in a more natural environment.

Sparks hopes to use the suit in an upcoming expedition, which, when it happens, will be the first to have an atmospheric suit work in tandem with a remotely operated underwater vehicle (ROV). Because of how the suit is built, Sparks will be able to capture live fish in a chamber on the suit, then put them in a bracket on the ROV that connects to cameras operated by scientists above water.

“A lot of reefs below the scope of traditional scuba diving are pretty much untouched for diversity. There’s all new stuff out there,” Sparks said.