You don't need to go to space to explore places that no man has ever been to. Recently, an international team of scientists went on the world's first survey to explore marine biodiversity in the abyssal waters off the east coast of Australia.

The abyssal zone is a layer of the ocean at depths of 13,000 to 20,000 ft (4,000 to 6,000 metres). This zone remains in perpetual darkness. The temperature there is around 36 to 37 °F (2-3 °C) and it's a very food-limited environment. "The abyss is the largest and deepest habitat on the planet, covering half the world's oceans and one-third of Australia's territory, but it remains the most unexplored environment on Earth," said Museums Victoria senior curator Tim O'Hara on the voyage's departure.

The researchers divided themselves into two shifts (2:00─14:00 and 14:00─2:00). Tirelessly sending their equipment nearly 16,000 foot deep, they hauled over 100 different species aboard their vessel, the Investigator. Five of them are thought to have never been discovered before!

Processing the catch involved separating different species, photographing the creepy specimens to record their colors, extracting muscle samples for DNA analysis, and so on. Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) ichthyologist John Pogonoski claimed they spent many hours processing the samples. According to him, the voyage is nothing less than "frontier science" that will undoubtedly increase our understanding of the deep-sea. The scientists are still busy preserving the finds for museums around the world. They will be available for research in the future as well. While everyone's waiting for CSIRO Australian National Fish Conference (ANFC) where names to these faceless critters will be given, scroll down and check out some of the spookiest from the whole gang.

More info: nespmarine.edu.au