THEY are the scientists at the forefront of uncovering the mysteries of the oceans.

From discovering new species, to working out how the world’s seas are being affected by climate change or even to the possibility of life on other planets.

Attempting to find the answers to all of these questions is a team of biologists, geologists, scientists and geophysicists who are hard at work at the National Oceanography Centre in Southampton.

And today you can go behind the scenes and get a glimpse into their pioneering and exciting work as they open their doors for the Ocean and Earth Day event.

As visitors to the open day will see it is not an easy or cheap job to get samples, segments and data on some of the world’s unseen oceans, so it is no surprise that one piece of equipment called ISIS is worth millions of pounds.

Attached to a ship by a 10km-long cable the remotely operated vehicle (ROV) can dive to depths of more than 6,500 metres underwater – or four miles – while teams of scientists are out on expeditions.

They operate the vehicle from a small, state-of-the-art control room on board a ship.

The high-tech control room, although small in size, has enough space for a team of seven to work long shifts where they control the ROV and get camera feeds of its findings on the ocean floor.

ISIS was part of an expedition looking at the private life of the deep-sea crab known as the Hoff found in the Antarctic Ocean and named after Baywatch star David Hasselhoff (see below).

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One scientist who has been at the forefront of the work at the centre is Dr Jon Copley (see above), who is an associate professor in marine ecolo gy at the University of Southampton.

He is the only man in the UK to have dived in a vehicle to depths of more than 5km.

The dive saw him and a team of Japanese researchers dive to the bottom of the Caribbean sea on the first manned mission to the world’s deepest known volcanic vents.

He explained the significance of the dive and researching the ocean floor at astonishing depths.

Dr Copley said: “It is part of an ongoing research programme that we have led here in Southampton.

“We work with international colleagues in the United States and in Japan and we were exploring the world’s deepest vents, finding new species understanding how they thrive in the conditions and relate it to marine life elsewhere.

“It is part of our overall research here which is looking at little islands of life on the ocean floor around things like volcanic vents.

“Marine life surprisingly to us thrives in these sorts of conditions and from working out and studying what lives where and how things are interrelated we can work out how species evolve and disperse from the ocean depths and we need to know that because our everyday lives affect the ocean depths.”

He believes that the findings could uncover the answers to a question on nearly everyone’s lips – are we alone in the universe and if water was discovered on Mars could there be life?

Dr Copley added: “Exploring the deep oceans can tell us what’s possible in nature, how can life survive and in what conditions can life surprisingly thrive.

“We are finding new species all the time and on average if we find a new animal at a depth of more than 3,000 metres there is a 50 50 chance that it will be a species new to science.”

Some of the key research and findings are made locally in the Solent, others near the English Channel and Atlantic Ocean – but wherever they’re made the results are all being studied, analysed and tested at the Oceanography Centre.

Today people can discover wonders of the oceans at the Ocean and Earth Day which is a collaboration between the University of Southampton and the National Oceanography Centre.

The event will run from 10.30am to 4pm.