The expedition, called SUBSEA, was conducted to find out how the underwater life could survive in a place without light.
This is useful for exploration in some extraterrestrial objects that have vast oceans and are suspected of having radiating holes. Examples are as observed on satellites Saturn Enceladus and Jupiter Europa satellites.
Both satellites have a vast sea beneath its thick ice surface. With this research, they hope to get funding for a robotic mission to find life in that aquatic celestial body.
In examining hot holes, hot holes in the seafloor are also commonly found on Earth, especially in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.
The hot holes typically emit thick black smoke, which is food for microbes and worm-like creatures that live around it. At certain locations, lobster, snails, and crabs live from the holes.
"But Lo'ihi is different," said the head of the SUBSEA program, Darlene Lim.
The researchers suspect that if similar seabed holes exist on other planets, they may be more similar to those in Lo'ihi-less as hot as black holes in the Atlantic Ocean.
Darlene revealed the temperature in the holes that emit black smoke can reach more than 370 degrees Celsius (700 degrees Fahrenheit). Meanwhile, space researchers suspect that the holes in Enceladus may only be 50-200 degrees Celsius (120-400 degrees Fahrenheit).
NASA is working with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to study Lo'ihi for 21 days. Remote Operated Vehicle (ROV) vessels will be deployed to collect rocks and observe the micro life around the volcano.
