For each month in 2021, we will post a wallpaper calendar for you to download to give your desktop a fresh look. At the end of each month, the image will be retired to the wallpaper collection without the calendar.
Instructions on how to make a picture your computer's wallpaper.
Basket stars, like this one from the family Gorgonocephalidae, are a type of brittle star. This beauty was seen among several soft coral (Anthomastus sp.) colonies at a depth of about 470 meters (1,542 feet) on a pinnacle feature on the southwest coast of the Hawaiian island of Ni‘ihau during the 2015 Hohonu Moana: Exploring the Deep Waters off Hawai‘i expedition. Image courtesy of NOAA Ocean Exploration, 2015 Hohonu Moana.
NOAA Ocean Exploration and partners embarked on the Deep-Sea Symphony: Exploring the Musicians Seamounts remotely operated vehicle and mapping expedition in the deepwater areas around the Musicians Seamounts and the Hawaiian Islands on NOAA Ship Okeanos Explorer as part of the Campaign to Address Pacific monument Science, Technology, and Ocean NEeds (CAPSTONE).
NOAA Ocean Exploration and NOAA Ship Okeanos Explorer participated in the Star-Spangled Spectacular in Baltimore, Maryland.
NOAA Ocean Exploration, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, the U.S. Geological Survey, and other partners embarked on the first expedition of the Deep Sea Exploration and Research of Coral/Canyon/Cold seep Habitats (DEEP SEARCH) project on NOAA Ship Pisces.
NOAA and the U.S. Coast Guard embarked on an expedition to search for U.S. Revenue Cutter Bear. In 2021, they continued the search.
NOAA Ocean Exploration embarked on the Atlantic Shelf Break Expedition 2011, a mapping expedition, on NOAA Ship Okeanos Explorer.
President Barack Obama established the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument, the first marine national monument in the Atlantic Ocean.
NOAA Ocean Exploration conducted the first full day of water column exploration ever with our remotely operated vehicles during the Deep-Sea Symphony: Exploring the Musicians Seamounts expedition on NOAA Ship Okeanos Explorer.
NOAA established Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary off the coast of California.
Millions of radio listeners across America (NBC) and Europe (BBC) were treated to the first live radio broadcast from the deep ocean. During the broadcast, William Beebe and Otis Barton described what they were seeing and experiencing during a record-breaking dive to 671 meters (2,200 feet) in their bathysphere in the waters of Bermuda.
President Jimmy Carter established the Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary off the coast of California.
NOAA and University of New Hampshire scientists embarked on the Return to Mendocino Ridge: U.S. Extended Continental Shelf Project, Exploratory Mapping Expedition off the coast of northern California on Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution’s Research Vessel Atlantis.
President Barack Obama expanded the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument to approximately 1,282,534 square kilometers (495,189 square miles), making it the largest marine reserve in the world at the time.
Auguste and Jacques Piccard set the first of four depth records in bathyscaphe Trieste when they dove to 3,150 meters (almost 2 miles) in the Tyrrhenian Sea.
Interested in learning more? Browse our expeditions by year and read about NOAA's history of ocean exploration, and, throughout the year, follow the stories Celebrating 20 Years of NOAA Ocean Exploration.