If you can't stand to watch the big speech tonight

[shireen]

Check this out instead ... for the past week, a little ROV has been exploring the ocean bottom near the American Samoa. Every dive has yielded at least one new species of invertebrates. Following them has been an incredible experience!

The last dive is tonight, and the end of it may overlap with that "other" event. Here's what they're doing:

February 28: Nautilus Site
2017-02-28 16:53
Today is our final dive of the 2017 American Samoa expedition! Join us as we seek to characterize a population of protected Nautili (mollusks with a chambered shell) that has been observed using baited cameras in the Taena Bank area, at depths between 300 and 400 meters, near the harbor of Pago Pago, American Samoa. This is also the depth range for bottomfish and precious corals. ROV launch may be slightly delayed, as the ship transits to the dive site.

I'm not sure what time they're starting, but you can start checking the live stream for updates starting around 2-3pm Eastern.

http://oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/okeanos/media/exstream/exstream.html

There are 3 cameras. Camera 1 is the main ROV viewer. Camera 2 is from another craft above that's tethered to the ROV, and provides a wider view of the ocean bottom. Camera 3 show various other cameras, sensor reading and topography maps. If you wanted, you could have all 3 streams up at the same time. But when they come to something really cool, be sure to watch it with your full screen.

The past dives have been deep down to seamounts (incl. one that's still active but we did not see any lava or vents). The deepest has been over 2 miles. But tonight is a shallow dive to find nautilus and study other cool creatures at about 1,000 ft to 13,000ft.

I'm so excited!

[gopiscrap]

1. I hope the Dems walk out on this fucker