Scientists have recently discovered a group of healthy sea stars near the bottom of the ocean off the coast California. After the 2013 sea star wasting disease, that which lasted a decade, the strong ocean currents must have swept them to the bottom of the ocean.

The terrible disease caused many sea stars to curl up, lose their limbs, and melt into a puddle of goo. “After a decade of death, scientists have started to notice that the marine creatures are making a comeback,” says Cody Mello-Klein, a reporter and communications specialist at Northeastern Global News. This is important because this sea star species is a key part of the marine ecosystem as it keeps other species in check.

In addition, the discovery of these sea stars led scientists to finally answer this question: Did some sea stars survive the disease? Well, “They’ll just go where the water takes them,” said Mica Weld, a researcher working with Jones, about sea stars’ behavior. “If a spot has favorable conditions, they’ll stay, finish their transformation and actually settle as juvenile stars and then you see them in the thousands.” This means that the sea stars will stay immobile when they have found a really great environment to live in.

Overall, “It’s still a really good sign that there’s a recovery,” said Angela Jones, a researcher at Northeastern University’s Marine Science Center who has studied sea stars on both the West and East coasts, said. She continued, “That gives us a lot of hope.”