Has anyone managed to get down to the 11.000 meters below sea levelThe answer is yes, and the first to achieve it did so in 1960.
It was an Italian construction and it went down very deep in an expedition that was made with the Trieste bathyscaphe.
We have known the depths of the ocean for 70 years, no more
One of humanity's greatest challenges is exploring the Earth—by air, sea, and land. And the sea is precisely one of the most challenging. For many years, it seemed impossible to descend even a few meters below sea level. We're talking about the year 1960, when it became possible to begin exploring what lay in the depths of the sea. In other words, all that is known of the deepest depths is from 70 years ago. To understand the evolution of knowledge about the ocean, we can look at changes in the ocean waters.
In this time, humans have been able to build a suitable environment for exploring the depths of the ocean; previously, they had to limit themselves to the outermost reaches. The first descent to great depths was made in 1960, in the Challenger Deep in the Mariana Trench. It was possible to lower almost 11.000 meters, specifically about 10.929 m deep.
The Challenger Deep and the Mariana Trench
If we want to find the deepest area on planet Earth, we must go to the Mariana Trench, where we find the deepest oceanic depression on the planet. It is 2.500 km long, but has a very characteristic shape, with crescent shapeIt is located between the Philippine tectonic plate and the Pacific tectonic plate. Geographically, it could be located between the Philippines, New Guinea, and Japan, in the North Pacific. For more information about this exceptional location, see What is the Mariana Trench?.
english ship expedition
This is the deepest point on the planet, and is located exactly 10.900 meters below sea level. It is known as Challenger Abyss, a name it receives because it was discovered by an English ship that It was called Challenger, around the year 1875. On this expedition it was said that the maximum depth below sea level was 8.184, which leads us to think that perhaps later it will be discovered that there was still depth to be discovered.
The British changed this figure
A few years later, in 1951, another British expedition was able to see that what had been discovered until then and that they had measured at 8.184 meters deep was not actually a well, but an abyss, and that It measured 10.863 meters deep. In honor of the first discovery, the second expedition decided to call the abyss after the ship, Challenger.
To this day it is known that the abyss is crescent-shaped, and that It is divided into three basins: the eastern, the central and the western. In addition, the depth that was measured, although it was very tight, is now known to be a little higher. There is talk of about 10.902 or 10.929 meters, it is not known exactly either.
Overcoming the obstacles of the sea
Between the 50s and 60s, humankind made many scientific advances at all levels. Many of the Earth's limits that had previously seemed impossible were overcome, whether by air, land, or sea. Let's remember that The first artificial satellite was launched in 1957. into space, and that humans themselves reached space in 1961. On Earth, limits were also surpassed, reaching the peaks of the highest mountains on the planet, such as Everest and K2, in the 50s. And at the end of this decade, the first research base at the South Pole was built. All of them places that humans had not been able to reach until that moment.
The sea was still another challenge for humanity. The submarines that were built at that time were not capable of reaching great depthsThey had to make a special construction to be able to reach so many meters deep in the ocean. There was no vessel capable of withstanding such water pressure. For more information on the characteristics of this ocean, you can consult the largest ocean in the world.
Bathyspheres and bathyscaphes, the solution to be able to explore the deep sea
They had to build steel spheres that were lowered with a rope and that were attached to the ship so that they would not get lost in the depths. This construction received the name of bathyspheres. They began to experiment with them around the 30s and in 1934 they went down to 923 meters. Still, they needed something else to be able to go deeper.
After World War II, bathyscaphes were designed, very similar to bathyspheres but without a rope. These descended by prepulsion with the help of electric motors. It was designed by an Italian, in 1948. But the joy was short-lived; it ended up sinking after a good dive. Some time later, A Swiss man named Auguste Piccard followed up on this idea and built another bathyscaphe.He named it FNRS-2. It didn't sink, and in fact, it served the French Navy on a mission off the coast of Senegal, descending to a depth of 4.000 meters.
Bathyscaphe of Trieste
But Piccard didn't stop with this prototype. He designed another bathyscaphe and this time he added a gasoline filled chamberThis allowed for greater buoyancy. He even designed a space for two crew members. Why is it called the Trieste Bathyscaphe? Because at that time, Piccard moved to Trieste, and it was from there that he designed this new prototype of bathyscaphes.
It wasn't until 1953 that it began to be used, and in 1958 it was purchased by the United States Navy, which wanted to explore the Mariana Trench. In 1959 the bathyscaphe was moved to the Mariana Trench and at the beginning of the 60s, exploration was carried out through the Challenger Deep. In it were Piccard himself and Don Walsh, a captain in the US Navy.
The trip itself lasted about 5 hours and came down to touch the bottom of the western basin, at a depth of 10.900 meters. From those depths they communicated with the mother ship via hydrophone. The expedition did not last long because 20 minutes later a layer of Plexiglas collapsed. (a transparent area that allowed us to see what was outside and was able to withstand these high pressures, at least to a certain extent). They had to climb up as quickly as they could, which went from a five-hour journey into the depths to a three-and-a-quarter-hour journey out. They emerged unharmed, and the operation was a complete success.