The bottom of the ocean holds mysteries science has barely begun to map, but when NASA was asked what is really down there, their answer reportedly unsettled even seasoned researchers. Vast trenches plunge deeper than Mount Everest, yet less than twenty percent of the seafloor has ever been directly explored.
In March 2012, filmmaker James Cameron piloted a specially built submarine, the Deep Sea Challenger, to the Challenger Deep, the deepest point in the Mariana Trench. He was the first person to complete that particular dive alone.Waiting for him when he surfaced was Kevin Hand, a NASA astrobiologist from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Hand had joined the expedition to study the water and sediment s…
The water pressure at the bottom of the Mariana Trench reaches roughly eight tons per square inch, and sunlight never reaches it. In 2018, researcher Shiba avoided the ocean entirely and searched
The water pressure at the bottom of the Mariana Trench reaches roughly eight tons per square inch, and sunlight never reaches it. In 2018, researcher Shiba avoided the ocean entirely and searched video archives instead, reviewing 5,010 old dives that had received little attention. One scene from 1998 stopped her completely.The trench was first discovered by the Royal Navy survey ship HMS Challenge…
Descending 11,000 meters into the Mariana Trench, explorers expected a lifeless abyss, but they discovered a hidden world thriving in total darkness. That alien landscape holds creatures unlike anything on Earth, along with a deeply unsettling secret about human impact.
A popular claim repeated in documentaries for decades holds that more people have walked on the moon than have visited the bottom of the ocean. Researchers who study deep-sea exploration say this comparison is not accurate.Only 12 people have set foot on the moon, and 24 traveled there in total. By early 2023, researchers tracking crewed descents estimated that at least 27 people, possibly more th…