The detailed images of the Titanic show the famous shipwreck like you’ve never seen it before

The world’s most famous shipwreck has been revealed like never before.

This is the first real-size digital scan of the titanicwhich lies 3,800 meters deep at the bottom of the Atlantic, using the technique of mapping the sea floor.

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The technique produced a unique 3D visualization of the entire vessel, allowing to see it as if all the water had been drained.

The images are expected to shed new light on exactly what happened to the ocean liner, which sank in 1912.

More than 1,500 people died when the ship struck an iceberg on its original voyage from Southampton, England to New York, United States.

“There are still questions, basic questions, about the ship that need to be answered,” Titanic specialist Parks Stephenson told BBC News.

He explained that the model was “one of the first important steps in moving the Titanic story toward evidence-based research, not speculation.”

split in two

The Titanic has been extensively explored since the wreck was discovered in 1985. But it is so large that in the gloom of the deep, cameras have been able to capture only limited photos of the decaying ship, never its full extent.

New scan captures the wreck in its entirety, revealing a complete panorama of the Titanic. It lies in two parts, with the bow and stern separated by about 800 meters. A large area of ​​debris surrounds the wrecked vessel.

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The scan was carried out in the summer of 2022 by Magellan Ltd, a deep-sea mapping company, and Atlantic Productions, which is producing a documentary on the project.

Submersibles remotely controlled by a team aboard a specialized ship, they spent more than 200 hours mapping the length and width of the wreck.

They took more than 700,000 images from all anglescreating an exact 3D reconstruction.

Magellan’s Gerhard Seiffert, who led the plans for the expedition, said it was the largest underwater scanning project he had ever undertaken.

“The depth, almost 4,000 meters, represents a challenge, in addition to the currents in place, and we are not allowed to touch anything so as not to damage the remains,” he explained.

“And another of the difficulties is that you have to map every square inch, including the boring parts, like in the waste area where you have to map the mud, but you have to include everything between the interesting objects.”

Details

The scan shows both the magnitude of the ship and some minuscule details, for example, the serial number on one of the propellers.

The bow, now littered with rust stalactites, is still perfectly recognizable even 100 years after the ship was lost. Above is the deck, with a huge void created by the void of the grand staircase that once stood there.

But the stern is a chaotic tangle of metal. This part of the ship fell apart as she corkscrewed toward the seabed.

In the surrounding waste area there are strewn items, including the ornate wrought metal of the ship, statues and still corked champagne bottles. There are also personal items, including dozens of shoes on the sediment.

Parks Stephenson, who has studied the Titanic for several years, said he was “shocked” when he saw the first scans.

“It allows you to see the wreck like you would never have seen it from a submersible, and you can see the wreck in its entirety, you can see it in context and in perspective. And what it shows you now is the true state of the wreck.”

noted that studies of the scans could provide new insights into what happened to the Titanic that fateful night in 1912.

“We really don’t understand the nature of the collision with the iceberg. We don’t even know if it hit her sideways on the starboard side, as they show in all the movies. She could have run aground on the iceberg,” he explained.

He added that by studying the stern, the mechanics of how the ship fell against the seabed could be elucidated.

The sea is taking its toll on the remains of the Titanic, microbes are eating away at them and some parts are disintegrating. Historians are well aware that time is running out to fully understand this maritime disaster.

But the current scan freezes the wreck in time and will allow experts to carefully scrutinize every minute detail. The hope is that the Titanic can reveal her secrets.

Source: Elcomercio

jack

I am Jack Morton and I work in 24 News Recorder. I mostly cover world news and I have also authored 24 news recorder. I find this work highly interesting and it allows me to keep up with current events happening around the world.