Since 71 percent of the Earth's surface is covered by water, it's not surprising that many items, both large and small, have gone missing at sea. In fact, numerous ships and at least one airplane are still lost out there. The MV Lyubov Orlova, a derelict Russian cruise ship, broke free from a towline in 2013 while en route from Newfoundland to the Dominican Republic, where it was meant to be scrapped. Experts believe the ship has most likely sunk somewhere in the North Atlantic, but that didn't stop Britain's The Sun newspaper from speculating that this "ghost ship" was headed toward the United Kingdom -- and that it was filled with "cannibal rats."
As of September 2015, the fuselage of the doomed Malaysian Airlines Flight 370, which disappeared on 8 March 2014 while traveling from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, has not been found. However, French authorities have now confirmed that several small wing fragments found on the Indian Ocean island of Réunion belonged to the crashed Boeing 777. The bulk of the aircraft, which was roughly the size of a US football field, is still missing.
Other ocean facts:
- Less than 1 percent of the Earth's water is fresh water.
- At 39 degrees Fahrenheit (3.8 degrees Celsius), the water temperature in much of the deep ocean is only slightly above freezing.
- The deepest point in the ocean is found in the Mariana Trench in the Pacific, at 36,200 feet (11,033 meters) below sea level.
