Research
Questions we are trying to answer.
Aethon helps ocean science see its own gaps, and where a new observation could fill one.
The questions we are working on.
Each one is open, and each needs evidence nobody has collected yet.
Biology & ecosystems
What lives down there, and how much of it has never been described?
About 250,000 marine species have been formally described (World Register of Marine Species (WoRMS), September 2026), while roughly two-thirds of an estimated 700,000 to 1 million ocean species have yet to be discovered or formally described (NOAA Ocean Exploration, April 2026). Nobody knows the size of what has not been catalogued.
Geology & hydrothermal systems
What is the structure beneath the seafloor, and where is it active?
Vents, seeps and spreading centres: where the planet's interior meets the ocean.
Environmental monitoring
What is changing, how fast, and against what baseline?
Temperature, chemistry, oxygen and currents over time. Many ocean measurements are one-offs, and change only shows up in a long series.
Mapping & geophysics
How much of the seafloor is genuinely mapped, and at what resolution?
28.7% of the seafloor has been mapped to modern high-resolution standards (Seabed 2030 / NOAA Ocean Exploration, April 2026), and resolution varies enormously between those areas.
How a claim earns the word “finding”.
A strange observation stays labelled unresolved until it clears all five.
- 01Repeatable measurement, with instruments and precision recorded.
- 02Multiple independent sensors before a claim is made.
- 03Conventional explanations tested first, and documented when they fit.
- 04Independent review by people who did not collect the data.
- 05Published provenance: who observed it, when, with what.
How Prototype 2 counts what it shows, what has been tested and what it cannot tell: Methods and limitations
Working with us
If you hold ocean data, run a programme, or have a question that needs observations nobody has collected yet, we want to hear about it.