• The ocean benefits the air we breathe by producing over half the world's oxygen and absorbing 50 times more carbon dioxide than Earth's atmosphere. 
• It helps regulate climate and weather patterns by transporting heat from Earth's equator to the poles. 
• The ocean provides a habitat for many important species. 
• It is a route for trade, as 76% of U.S. trade utilizes marine transportation. 
• The ocean provides a place for recreational activities like boating, fishing, whale watching, surfing, scuba diving, snorkeling, and swimming. 
• It is a great vacation destination providing breathtaking views. 
• The ocean benefits the economy by providing goods and services and many jobs. 
• It provides food in the form of seafood as well as other ocean-based ingredients. 
• The ocean provides ingredients used in many medicines and therapeutic products. 

This month's spotlight career is something that many people haven't heard of, an astrobiologist. An astrobiologist is someone who studies the evolution of life on earth, how life exists in extreme environments, and how it could be possible to find life that exists on other planets. What does being an astrobiologist have to do with the ocean though? Well, the ocean is home to some of the most extreme environments on earth, which means astrobiologists are very familiar with the ocean and its extreme ways of life.

The ocean is home to some incredibly harsh ecosystems on earth including hydrothermal vent, cold seep, hypersaline, hypoxic, and trench environments. These places are not only hard for scientists to research, but also extremely hard for life to exist in. As difficult as it is for life to exist in these places, it always seems to find a way, and that's what astrobiologists aim to understand. By figuring out what organisms live and thrive in these inhospitable ecosystems, astrobiologists are able to get a better understanding of how those living things evolved.

With more understanding about extreme conditions and the organisms that prosper despite them, scientists can help sustain life on our planet as the climate changes and also assist in the search for finding life in outer space. As research on extreme environments continues, astrobiologists are not only discovering organisms that were thought to be nonexistent, but are also discovering information about where else in our solar system life might exist. The deeper these astrobiologists dive into the mysteries of the ocean, the more clues they unlock about the universe we live in.