In the cold waters of the Antarctic, among floating ice floes, the hums, pitches and echoes of life in the depths are helping scientists understand the behavior and movements of marine mammals.
“There are species that make impressive sounds, literally like in Star Wars, they sound like spaceships,” said Andrea Bonilla, a Colombian scientist who is conducting research with underwater microphones off the coast of Antarctica.
Biologists at Cornell University in New York immersed a hydrophone covered in titanium and attached to a buoy in cold water. This device is like a camera trap in the forest, except it captures aquatic sounds.
His team, part of the Columbian Scientific Expedition to the Southern Ocean, also picks up instruments they left behind a year ago for analysis.