With 80-percent of Earth’s oceans still largely uncharted, there’s a lot out there to discover. Of course, getting there on your own isn’t the easiest journey, but that’s where OceanXplorers can help. Today, National Geographic is premiering the first official trailer for its upcoming, ambitious six-part miniseries, exclusively on Popular Science. Check it out ahead of the show’s August 18 premiere at 9PM EST on NatGeo. All six episodes will be available for streaming the next day on Disney+ and Hulu.
Co-produced by blockbuster director and ocean explorer James Cameron and the BBC team behind the documentary series Blue Planet II, OceanXplorers follows some of the world’s foremost experts in marine biology, ecology, robotics, and submersible piloting as the team travels to the West Indies, the Dominican Republic, the Azores, and the Arctic. National Geographic first announced the project back in 2021, and its handpicked, four-person team has since spent months aboard OceanX’s OceanXplorer on a maiden voyage to investigate some of the world’s most remote ocean frontiers.
Four diverse crew members from around the world make up the OceanXplorers outfit: National Geographic Explorer and deep-sea researcher Zoleka Filander, shark biologist Melissa Cristina Márquez, former NASA engineer and robotics expert Eric Stackpole, and ex-Royal Marine Special Ops commando, Aldo Kane.
Using state-of-the-art underwater camera systems along with cutting-edge research equipment, the OceanXplorer crew documented never-before-seen regions of the planet in unprecedented detail. Over the course of the series, OceanXplorers will provide audiences with incredible glimpses into some of the most diverse—yet rapidly disappearing—ecosystems, highlighting just what’s at stake for the planet’s future.
[Related: New squid alert! 100+ species discovered off the coast of New Zealand.]
“My true passion lies in deep ocean science and in exploration,” James Cameron said in a statement, adding that OceanXplorers will “take viewers on an unparalleled ocean science adventure, introducing them to a group of principled, passionate people on a sometimes dangerous mission of ocean discovery in real time.”
Designed and built by the global science, media, and exploration nonprofit OceanX, the OceanXplorer itself is a state-of-the-art research vessel equipped with a helicopter, multiple marine science labs, and two submersibles—Neptune and Nadir—both of which are capable of diving as far as 1000 meters (3,280 feet) for as long as 72 hours. Over the course of the series, the four crewmembers travel to the Caribbean to visit humpback whales, glimpse an enormous squid in the Atlantic, study the gigantic prehistoric sixgill shark in the Azores, and even travel to the very edge of the Arctic ice cap to meet a deep-sea Greenland shark—some of which have been known to live for over 400 years.
“[OceanXplorers is] a story that inspires the next generation of explorers and adventurers committed to protecting and preserving our oceans,” Cameron added.
OceanXplorers sets sail on August 18 at 9PM EST on NatGeo, followed by a full series streaming premiere August 19 on Disney+ and Hulu.