Deepsea Challenger Takes James Cameron Beyond The Titanic
It's official! #-Link-Snipped-# has become the first person in last 50 years (and 3rd in the history) to visit the deepest point in the ocean. Thanks to the extreme engineering that enabled the 'Deepsea Challenger' reach the bottom of the Mariana Trench; considered as the lowest point on the Earth. At 7:52am local time today (March 26), the specially designed and engineered submersible took Cameron 35,756 feet (10,898m) below the surface of the Ocean. The spot is located about 500 km the southwest of Guam. If anyone is planning to go deeper than Cameron, they'll have to excavate deeper into the sea. The journey down to the bottom of the trench took Cameron approximately 90 minutes . Cameron sent a simple "All Systems OK" message to the crew waiting to hear from him. We wonder whether a tweet would have been a better option because that'd have made Cameron truly the first one to tweet from the lowest point on the Earth!
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Deepsea Challenger Mission Completed | Image Credit: National Geographic
The Deepsea Challenger is a specially engineering submersible that took about 8 years in development and it's a gizmo heaven. The sub is packed with so many gadgets that the pilot only has 43" wide room to move. It's equipped with a cruise control to let Cameron hover over any spot he wished and glide through the water at a constant speed. A cold metal sphere would collect the water vapor from Cameron's breath & sweat and then collected into a plastic bag. Cameron could drink it if he wanted to in case of emergency.
The ascent took about 70 minutes after which the ships crains plucked the vessel from the sea. Cameron collected various samples from the bottom which will now be used for scientific studies. But this is not the end of a big mission. The crew says that this is just a start of a big program that will enable us to explore the deepest seas like never before.
For your general knowledge, the Titanic rests at 12467 ft below the surface of ocean. What do you think?
Via: #-Link-Snipped-#