Explorer and filmmaker James Cameron reached the deepest part of the Pacific Ocean at 7:52 am Monday local time (2152 GMT Sunday) in his specially designed submersible. He is the first person to dive there solo and reach a depth of 35,756 feet (10,898 meters), since it was initially explored in 1960.
The DEEPSEA CHALLENGER, the submersible which Cameron helped design, is a “vertical torpedo” of sorts which already successfully completed an unpiloted dive on Friday. Cameron planned to spend up to six hours on the Pacific Ocean sea floor, collecting samples for scientific research and taking still photographs and moving images.
His goal was to become the first human to visit the ocean’s deepest point in more than 50 years, and to bring back data and specimens. He was expected to take 3D images that could help scientists better understand the unexplored part of the earth.
Cameron described his journey to the bottom of the Marianas Trench — nearly 7 miles down in a dark freezing and alien place: he says the last frontier on Earth looks an awful lot like another planet: desolate and foreboding.
Cameron says he worried about being too busy with exploration duties to take in just how amazing this place was. That happened to Apollo astronauts. So he says he took time to stare at the moon-like barren surface and to appreciate how alien it is.
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2 comments:
This is so cool. (And therefore belongs in an appropriate cave, of course.) I remember how amazed I was when I first heard that humans had been that deep--even though it was 20 years after the fact. I'm so glad to see that someone else has finally returned.
It gave me something to admire James Cameron for which I never thought would happen.
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