WHAT IS THERE LEFT TO EXPLORE?

Everest, the Poles, the moon - all been done. Places that humans have already explored. It therefore might come as a surprise that 65% of the planet Earth remains unexplored. I know. Scary.

I am absolutely terrified of the sea. Not the kind of crystal-clear ocean you paddle in on a golden beach on the coast of some paradise in the middle of summer. The kind of sea where humans have not yet been able to reach the bottom, let alone explore it. In fact, we know more about outer space than the ocean, with better maps of Mars than of the seabed. Take the Mariana Trench, home to Challenger Deep, the deepest known point of the ocean. We cannot even be sure that this is, in fact, the deepest point. Only two people have ever successfully made it to Challenger Deep, whilst thousands have scaled Everest which you would perhaps presume more dangerous. The reason for the secrets of our oceans remaining undiscovered is pressure. A dive to the Mariana Trench would involve being seven miles deep down into the ocean, experiencing 1,000 times more pressure than on the surface, equivalent to the weight of 50 jumbo jets. So more than 80% of our ocean remains unmapped, unobserved and unexplored. Who knows what life could be down there?

Exploration spans further than just geographical exploration. Gone are the days when men went out in wooden ships to find new foreign lands. To explore is to travel through unfamiliar terrain to learn about it, or to inquire into a subject in detail. Most of the brain remains an unknown frontier. Neuroscientists don't yet fully understand how information is processed by the brain of a worm which has several hundred neurons, let alone by the brain of a human that has 80 billion to 100 billion neurons. The lab roundworm houses 302 neurons and 7,000 connections between them in its microscopic body. Researchers have painstakingly mapped all those connections in recent years - and we still don’t fully understand how they all work together to give rise to the worm’s behaviours. Brain science is arguably one of the most mysterious fields of science and the closer researchers look, the more bewilderingly complex it appears. Although it is not a physical area, and you can’t exactly “travel through” it, it is still a subject we can inquire into, making it open to exploration according to the definition. Currently, it remains ‘unexplored’.

Historians study the past, looking into the lives of people who walked the Earth hundreds of years ago, discovering secrets buried by the passing of time. Surely they are exploring too? Exploring the past rather than science or the Earth. We do not know everything about the past. Yes, we have a rough idea as to an order of events in the course of the history of the world, being more certain about events closer to today. But archaeologists still find clues to help uncover the mystery that is the vastly unexplored past. Bones, skeletons and ruins preserved beneath our feet, keys to unexplored aspects of history. There is certainly so much more of our past to explore.

You and I have not discovered all aspects of ourselves. I don’t know about you, but I have not tried every food, job or activity, so how can I say I have explored myself? I don’t know if I like skydiving; I have never done it. I do not know everything about myself. Does anyone ever truly discover themselves? Many people go on retreats and journey to remote locations to try to ‘find themselves’ But how is it possible to say you have discovered yourself when we do not know the purpose of life? What is the meaning of our lives on a small planet in the shadow of others in a solar system? How does your life fit into this? For me, this is a topic that many never explore.

But why is it that after all this time only 35% of the world has been explored? Why do we still not understand the fundamental organs of our own bodies? And why do we not even know details of the past that has shaped our lives today? Perhaps the simple answer is the Earth is more complex than it first appears. It is constantly changing, impossible to keep up with. Or perhaps it is due to the novelty of mystery wearing off for humans. Hundreds of years ago, when absolutely nothing had been discovered other than the ground that the early settlers stood on, they wondered what else was out there. What better life could be waiting for them? Today we are comfortable. Any subject we do not know anything about we can look up on Google. We don’t have to wonder if the Earth is round or flat - we have seen the satellite images. Why concern ourselves with every detail of the past? Our lives are complicated enough. Perhaps this complacency is responsible for the decline in the hunger to explore the unknown. In short, yes, of course there is so much more to explore. Look up into the sky, see that galaxy far away, see that twinkling star. The universe is infinite. What is there left to explore?

Beth P (11F)

APRIL 2023