NBCNews
Though it’s existed for decades, the swirling collection of debris particles and trash adrift in the middle of the Pacific Ocean known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is attracting renewed attention from scientists and environmental experts with the return of a research vessel that has been collecting data from the gyre — a circular system of rotating ocean currents — for the past several months. Charles Moore, who is credited with discovering the gyre on a yachting race in the North Pacific, led a team of scientists on a two-month expedition to the heart of the Garbage Patch beginning in July, and what they saw shocked them.