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A crew member on research vessel Thomas G. Thompson signals the crane operator to lower a hadal lander into the water above the Kermadec Trench northeast of New Zealand. The lander was designed to carry equipment to run experiments at the seafloor with animals collected by the hybrid remotely operated vehicle Nereus. After Nereus imploded in the trench, making the original experiments impossible, researchers rigged the lander to collect water and sediment samples instead, so they could continue their exploration of the second-deepest trench in the ocean.(Photo by Ken Kostel, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)