On the morning of January 23, 1960 Jacques Picard and US Navy Lieutenant Don Walsh began a historic dive into the Mariana Trench.

Auguste Piccard: From Heaven to Depths

The history of the conquest of the deepest point of the World Ocean is inextricably linked with the name Swiss scientist Auguste Picard, physicist and inventor.

Auguste Piccard, born in the family of a chemistry professor, became interested in aeronautics in the 1930s and developed the world's first stratospheric balloon - a balloon with a spherical pressurized aluminum gondola that allows you to fly in upper layers atmosphere while maintaining normal pressure inside.

On his apparatus, Picard, who by that time was already 47 years old, made 27 flights, reaching an altitude of 23,000 meters.

Swiss scientist, physicist and inventor Auguste Piccard, 1931. Photo: www.globallookpress.com

During experiments with the stratostat, Picard realized that the same principles could be used to conquer the depths of the sea. so swiss scientist started to work on the creation of an apparatus capable of diving to great depths.

Second World War interrupted the work of Auguste Picard. Despite the fact that Switzerland remained a neutral country, scientific activity at that time was seriously complicated and there.

Nevertheless, in 1945, Auguste Piccard completed the construction of a deep-sea vehicle, called the bathyscaphe.

Picard's bathyscaphe was a high-strength pressurized steel gondola for the crew, which was attached to a large float filled with gasoline to provide positive buoyancy. For diving, several tons of steel or cast iron ballast in the form of shot were used, held in bunkers by electromagnets. To reduce the rate of immersion and to ascend, the electric current in the electromagnets was turned off, and part of the shot spilled out. Such a mechanism ensured the ascent even in the event of equipment failure, after a certain time the batteries simply discharged - and all the shot spilled out.

Bathyscaphe was named FNRS-2. FNRS stood for the Belgian National Foundation for Scientific Research (Fonds National de la Recherche Scientifique), which funded Picard's work.

It is curious that the name FNRS-1 was worn by ... Picard's stratostat. The scientist himself joked about this: “These devices are extremely similar to each other, although their purpose is opposite. Perhaps fate was pleased to create this similarity precisely in order to work on the creation of both devices could one scientist.

Creation of Trieste

The first test dive of the FNRS-2 took place in Dakar on October 25, 1948, and, of course, its creator himself was the pilot of the bathyscaphe. True, no records were set at that time - the device plunged only 25 meters.

Further work with the bathyscaphe was complicated by the fact that the Belgian foundation stopped funding. Auguste Piccard eventually sold the FNRS-2 to the French Navy, whose specialists invited a scientist to build a new model of a bathyscaphe, called the FNRS-3.

The ideas of bathyscaphes, meanwhile, were taking over the world, and they intended to build a new model in Italy. In 1952, Auguste Piccard, leaving the FNRS-3 to French engineers, went to Italy to develop and build a bathyscaphe, called Trieste.

Bathyscaphe Trieste. Photo: www.globallookpress.com

Trieste was launched in August 1953. Auguste Picard was assisted in the construction of the bathyscaphe by his son, Jacques Picard, who was to become the chief pilot of the new deep-sea vehicle.

In 1953-1957, the Trieste conducted a series of successful dives in the Mediterranean Sea, and even reached a depth of 3100 meters, which was fantastic at that time. In the first dives of the Trieste, along with Jacques Picard, the creator of the bathyscaphe, Auguste Picard, who was 69 years old by that time, also participates.

Project "Nekton"

Trieste's research work required serious investments. Each descent of the apparatus had to be supported by several escort vessels. Picard's bathyscaphe had to be towed to the dive site, since he did not have his own horizontal course.

In 1958, the Trieste was acquired by the US Navy, which showed an interest in exploring the depths of the sea. Together with the apparatus, Jacques Picard also went to America, who was to teach American specialists how to control the bathyscaphe.

The strength inherent in the design of the Trieste made it possible to dive to the maximum depths known in the oceans. At the same time, Jacques Picard himself noted that this is simply not required for most studies, since 99 percent of the ocean floor is located at depths of no more than 6,000 meters. Picard's correctness was confirmed by subsequent history - later deep-sea vehicles, including the well-known Russian Mir-1 and Mir-2, were built precisely with the expectation of a depth of about 6000 meters.

However, humanity likes to set maximum goals for itself, so it was decided to send Trieste to conquer the deepest point of the World Ocean - the Mariana Trench in the Pacific Ocean, the depth of which reaches 11 km.

Bathyscaphe "Trieste" before diving, January 23, 1960. Photo: Public Domain

This operation, which involved US Navy forces, was codenamed Project Nekton. For its implementation, serious improvements were made to the apparatus, in particular, in Germany, a new, more durable gondola was manufactured at the Krupp plant.

At the end of 1959, the Trieste was delivered to the US naval base on the Pacific island of Guam. During the Second World War, the island was the scene of bloody battles, and by the time the Nekton Project was carried out, at least those who did not consider the war over continued to hide in the jungle.

However, this did not affect the preparation of the historical dive. After several trial descents of 5 km and 7 km (which was already a record for that time), the go-ahead was given to the so-called "Big Dive".

"Big Dive"

Here, however, there was a misunderstanding between Picard and the American side. The Americans said that Picard would not take part in the Big Dive. Perhaps the US Navy felt that the historic achievement should be purely American, not US-Swiss.

Unable to convince his colleagues, Picard gave the last argument - he took out a contract and showed a clause stating that he had the right to participate in "special dives". The fact that a dive to 11 km is a special case, the American representatives did not dispute, and allowed Picard to dive.

Mariana Trench. Photo: wikipedia.org / wallace

Picard himself later recalled that he persisted not just out of a desire to set a record - he dived on the Trieste more than 60 times, while his colleagues from the USA had a minimum number of independent dives.

Trieste was towed to the descent point on the night of January 23, 1960. It was heavy, stormy weather, the bathyscaphe was battered due to rough seas, and Picard had to decide whether to go diving or not. The Swiss gave the go-ahead.

On the morning of January 23, 1960, Jacques Piccard and US Navy Lieutenant Don Walsh began the historical dive. Picard wrote that due to the characteristics of the upper layers of the waters in this place, they spent a lot of time diving to a depth of 300 meters. The speed with which they dived suggested that the dive would last 30 hours, which was absolutely unrealistic. Fortunately, then the speed reached the calculated indicators.

At 13:06 on January 23, 1960, after five hours of diving, Picard and Walsh reached the bottom of the Mariana Trench at around 10,919 meters. According to Picard, the measurement accuracy was plus or minus several tens of meters.

The historic descent of the Trieste solved the question that tormented ocean scientists: can complex organisms live at such a depth. As soon as the apparatus reached the bottom, Picard and Walsh were "greeted" by a fish that looked like a stingray, caught in the bathyscaphe's searchlight. Although Picard's statement was subsequently questioned due to the lack of documentary evidence.

The researchers stayed at the bottom for 20 minutes, after which the apparatus returned to the surface for three hours. There, Picard and Walsh fell into the arms of other participants in the historical project.

The third in the abyss was the creator of "Avatar"

Weather conditions and technical difficulties led to the fact that Picard and Walsh's dive to the bottom of the Mariana Trench was the only one in the framework of the Nekton Project. And for Jacques Picard himself, it turned out to be farewell - from that moment on, Trieste finally passed into the hands of US Navy specialists, and the Swiss no longer worked with him.

Jacques Picard, in a book on historical immersion, wrote that with reaching the bottom of the Mariana Trench, a person will have nowhere else to set such records - all that remains is to go into space. The scientist was not mistaken: a little more than a year later, April 12, 1961.

The Picard family passion for inventions was passed on to the son of Jacques, Bertrand Picard. In 1999, he became the first person to commit trip around the world at the airport.

Bathyscaphe "Trieste" until 1963 was part of the US Navy, and now is an exhibit of the Naval Historical Center in Washington.

In 2012, director James Cameron reached the bottom of the Mariana Trench on the Deepsea Challenger single-seat submersible. Photo: www.globallookpress.com

From 1960 to 2012, no person, except Picard and Walsh, sank to the bottom of the Mariana Trench. In 2012, on the single-seat bathyscaphe Deepsea Challenger of the bottom of the Mariana Trench James Cameron, creator of "Titanic" and "Avatar". It was on the set of "Titanic", diving on Russian devices"Peace" to the lost ship, the director became interested in deep-sea diving. And in the preparation of Cameron's conquest of the bottom of the Mariana Trench, none other than Picard's partner in the historic dive, Don Walsh, participated.

Many people know that the highest point is (8848 m). If you are asked where is the deepest point of the ocean, what will you answer? Mariana Trench- this is the place we want to tell you about.

But first I want to note that they never cease to amaze us with their riddles. The described place is also still not properly studied for quite objective reasons.

So, we offer you or, as it is also called, the Mariana Trench. Below are valuable photographs of the mysterious inhabitants of this abyss.

It is located in the western part Pacific Ocean. This is the deepest place in the world, of all known today.

Having V-shape, the depression runs along the Mariana Islands for 1500 km.

Mariana Trench on the map

An interesting fact is that the Mariana Trench is located at the junction: the Pacific and the Philippine.

The pressure at the bottom of the trough reaches 108.6 MPa, which is almost 1072 higher than the normal pressure.

Probably, now you understand that because of such conditions, it is extremely difficult to explore the mysterious bottom of the world, as this place is also called. Nevertheless, the scientific community, starting from the end of the 19th century, has not ceased to study this mystery of nature step by step.

Exploration of the Mariana Trench

In 1875, an attempt was made for the first time to globally explore the Mariana Trench. The English expedition "Challenger" carried out measurements and analysis of the trough. It was this group of scientists who set the initial mark at 8184 meters.

Of course, this was not the full depth, since the capabilities of that time were much more modest than today's measuring systems.

Soviet scientists also contributed huge contribution into research. An expedition led by the Vityaz research vessel in 1957 began its own studies and found that there is life at a depth of more than 7,000 meters.

Until that time, there was a strong belief that at such a depth life is simply impossible.

We invite you to see a curious image of the Mariana Trench on a scale:

Diving to the bottom of the Mariana Trench

1960 was one of the most fruitful years in terms of the study of the Mariana Trench. The Trieste research bathyscaphe made a record dive to a depth of 10,915 meters.

This is where something mysterious and inexplicable began. Special devices that record underwater sound began to transmit terrible noises to the surface, reminiscent of the grinding of a saw on metal.

The monitors registered mystical shadows, which in shape resembled fairy-tale dragons with several heads. For an hour, scientists tried to capture as much data as possible, but then the situation began to get out of control.

It was decided to immediately raise the bathyscaphe to the surface, since there were reasonable fears that if you wait a little longer, the bathyscaphe will forever remain in the mysterious abyss of the Mariana Trench.

For more than 8 hours, specialists have been extracting unique equipment made of heavy-duty materials from the bottom.

Of course, all the instruments, and the bathyscaphe itself, were carefully placed on a special platform for studying the surface.

What was the surprise of scientists when it turned out that almost all elements of the unique apparatus, made from the most durable at that time, were severely deformed and mangled.

The cable, 20 cm in diameter, lowering the bathyscaphe to the bottom of the Mariana Trench, was half sawn. Who and why tried to cut it remains a mystery to this day.

An interesting fact is that only in 1996 the American newspaper The New York Times published the details of this unique study.

lizard from the Mariana Trench

The German expedition "Highfish" also encountered the inexplicable mysteries of the Mariana Trench. While plunging the research apparatus to the bottom, scientists encountered unexpected difficulties.

Being at a depth of 7 kilometers under water, they decided to raise the equipment.

But the technology refused to obey. Then special infrared cameras were turned on to find out the cause of the failures. However, what they saw on the monitors plunged them into indescribable horror.

On the screen, a fantastic lizard of gigantic proportions was clearly visible, which was trying to gnaw through the bathyscaphe, like a squirrel nut.

Being in a state of shock, the hydronauts activated the so-called electric gun. Having received a powerful discharge of current, the lizard disappeared into the abyss.

What was it, fantasy of the possessed research work scientists, mass hypnosis, delirium of people tired of colossal stress, or just someone's joke - is still unknown.

The deepest place in the Mariana Trench

On December 7, 2011, researchers at the University of New Hampshire submerged a unique robot to the bottom of a research trough.

Thanks to modern equipment, it was possible to register a depth of 10,994 m (+/- 40 m). This place was named after the first expedition (1875), which we wrote about above: “ Challenger Abyss».

Inhabitants of the Mariana Trench

Of course, after these inexplicable and even mystical secrets, logical questions began to arise: what monsters live at the bottom of the Mariana Trench? After all, for a long time it was believed that below 6000 meters the existence of living beings is in principle impossible.

However, later studies of the Pacific Ocean in general, and the Mariana Trench in particular, confirmed the fact that at a much greater depth, in impenetrable darkness, under monstrous pressure and water temperature close to 0 degrees, a huge number of unprecedented creatures live.

Undoubtedly, without modern technology, made of the most durable materials and equipped with cameras that are unique in their properties, such a study would be simply impossible.

Half-meter mutant octopus

One and a half meter monster

As a summary, we can confidently say that at the bottom of the Mariana Trench, between 6000 and 11000 meters under water, the following were reliably found: worms (up to 1.5 meters in size), crayfish, a variety of amphipods, gastropods, mutants, mysterious, not identified soft-bodied creatures of two meters in size, etc.

These inhabitants feed mainly on bacteria and the so-called "corpse rain", that is, dead organisms that slowly sink to the bottom.

Hardly anyone doubts that the Mariana Trench stores many more. However, people do not leave attempts to explore this unique place on the planet.

Thus, the only people who dared to dive to the "bottom of the earth" were the American marine specialist Don Walsh and the Swiss scientist Jacques Picard. On the same Trieste bathyscaphe, they reached the bottom on January 23, 1960, sinking to a depth of 10,915 meters.

However, on March 26, 2012, James Cameron, an American director, made a solo dive to the bottom of the deepest point in the oceans. Bathyscaphe collected all the necessary samples and made a valuable photo and video shooting. Thus, we now know that only three people have been in the Challenger Abyss.

Did they manage to answer at least half of the questions? Of course not, since the Mariana Trench still hides much more mysterious and inexplicable things.

By the way, James Cameron stated that after diving to the bottom, he felt completely cut off from the world of people. Moreover, he assured that there are simply no monsters at the bottom of the Mariana Trench.

But here we can recall a primitive Soviet statement, after a flight into space: "Gagarin flew into space - he did not see God." This led to the conclusion that there is no God.

Similarly, here, we cannot unequivocally say that the giant lizard and other creatures that scientists saw in the course of previous studies were the result of someone's sick fantasy.

It is important to understand that the geographic object under study has a length of more than 1000 kilometers. Therefore, potential monsters, the inhabitants of the Mariana Trench, could well be located many hundreds of kilometers from the place of study.

However, these are just hypotheses.

Panorama of the Mariana Trench on Yandex Map

Another interesting fact may intrigue you. On April 1, 2012, Yandex published a comic panorama of the Mariana Trench. On it you can see a sunken ship, water plumes and even the glowing eyes of a mysterious underwater monster.

Despite the humorous idea, this panorama is tied to a real place and is still available to users.

To view it, copy this code into the address bar of your browser:

https://yandex.ua/maps/-/CZX6401a

The abyss knows how to keep its secrets, and our civilization has not yet reached such a development as to “crack” natural mysteries. However, who knows, maybe one of the readers of this article in the future will become the very genius who will be able to solve this problem?

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Mariana Trench (or Mariana Trench) - the deepest place earth's surface. It is located on the western edge of the Pacific Ocean, 200 kilometers east of the Mariana Archipelago.

Paradoxically, humanity knows much more about the secrets of space or mountain peaks than about the depths of the ocean. And one of the most mysterious and unexplored places on our planet is just the Mariana Trench. So what do we know about him?

Mariana Trench - the bottom of the world

In 1875, the crew of the British corvette Challenger discovered a place in the Pacific Ocean where there was no bottom. Kilometer after kilometer the rope of the lot went overboard, but there was no bottom! And only at a depth of 8184 meters the descent of the rope stopped. Thus, the deepest underwater crack on Earth was discovered. It was named the Mariana Trench, after the nearby islands. Its shape (in the form of a crescent) and the location of the deepest section, called the "Challenger Abyss", were determined. It is located 340 km south of the island of Guam and has coordinates 11°22′ N. sh., 142°35′ E d.

“The fourth pole”, “the womb of Gaia”, “the bottom of the world” has since been called this deep-water depression. Oceanographic scientists have long tried to find out its true depth. Research different years gave different values. The fact is that at such a colossal depth, the density of water increases as it approaches the bottom, so the properties of the sound from the echo sounder also change in it. Using barometers and thermometers at different levels along with echo sounders, in 2011 the depth value in the Challenger Abyss was set at 10994 ± 40 meters. This is the height of Mount Everest plus another two kilometers from above.

The pressure at the bottom of the underwater crevasse is almost 1100 atmospheres, or 108.6 MPa. Most of the deep-sea vehicles are designed for a maximum depth of 6-7 thousand meters. During the time that has passed since the discovery of the deepest canyon, it was possible to successfully reach its bottom only four times.

In 1960, the Trieste deep-sea bathyscaphe, for the first time in the world, descended to the very bottom of the Mariana Trench in the area of ​​​​the Challenger Abyss with two passengers on board: US Navy Lieutenant Don Walsh and Swiss oceanographer Jacques Picard.

Their observations made it possible important conclusion about the presence of life at the bottom of the canyon. The discovery of the upward flow of water was also of great ecological importance: based on it, the nuclear powers refused to bury radioactive waste at the bottom of the Mariana Trough.

In the 90s, the gutter was explored by the Japanese unmanned probe Kaiko, which brought samples of silt from the bottom, in which bacteria, worms, shrimp were found, as well as pictures of a hitherto unknown world.

In 2009, the American robot Nereus conquered the abyss, raising samples of silt, minerals, samples of deep-sea fauna and photos of inhabitants of unknown depths from the bottom.

In 2012, James Cameron, the author of Titanic, Terminator and Avatar, dived into the abyss alone. He spent 6 hours at the bottom, collecting samples of soil, minerals, fauna, as well as taking photographs and 3D video. Based on this material, the film "Challenge to the Abyss" was created.

Amazing discoveries

In the trench at a depth of about 4 kilometers is the active Daikoku volcano, spewing liquid sulfur, which boils at 187 ° C in a small depression. The only lake of liquid sulfur was discovered only on Jupiter's moon Io.

At 2 kilometers from the surface, "black smokers" swirl - sources of geothermal water with hydrogen sulfide and other substances that, upon contact with cold water, turn into black sulfides. The movement of sulfide water resembles puffs of black smoke. The water temperature at the point of release reaches 450 ° C. The surrounding sea does not boil only because of the density of the water (150 times greater than at the surface).

In the north of the canyon are "white smokers" - geysers spewing liquid carbon dioxide at a temperature of 70-80 ° C. Scientists suggest that it is in such geothermal "boilers" that one should look for the origins of life on Earth. Hot springs "warm up" the icy waters, supporting life in the abyss - the temperature at the bottom of the Mariana Trench is in the range of 1-3 ° C.

Life beyond life

It would seem that in an atmosphere of complete darkness, silence, icy cold and unbearable pressure, life in the hollow is simply unthinkable. But studies of the depression prove the opposite: there are living creatures almost 11 kilometers under water!

The bottom of the sinkhole is covered with a thick layer of mucus from organic sediments that have been descending from the upper layers of the ocean for hundreds of thousands of years. Mucus is an excellent nutrient medium for barrophilic bacteria, which form the basis of the nutrition of protozoa and multicellular organisms. Bacteria, in turn, become food for more complex organisms.

The ecosystem of the underwater canyon is truly unique. Living beings have managed to adapt to an aggressive, destructive environment under normal conditions, with high pressure, lack of light, a small amount of oxygen and a high concentration of toxic substances. Life in such unbearable conditions gave many inhabitants of the abyss a frightening and unattractive look.

Deep-sea fish have incredible mouths, seated with sharp long teeth. High pressure made their bodies small (from 2 to 30 cm). However, there are also large specimens, such as the xenophyophora amoeba, reaching 10 cm in diameter. The frilled shark and goblin shark, living at a depth of 2000 meters, generally reach 5-6 meters in length.

Representatives of different types of living organisms live at different depths. The deeper the inhabitants of the abyss, the better their organs of vision are, allowing them to catch the slightest glimmer of light on the body of their prey in complete darkness. Some individuals themselves are able to produce directional light. Other creatures are completely devoid of organs of vision, they are replaced by organs of touch and radar. With increasing depth, underwater inhabitants lose their color more and more, the bodies of many of them are almost transparent.

On the slopes where the "black smokers" live, molluscs have learned to neutralize the sulfides and hydrogen sulfide that are fatal to them. And, which remains a mystery to scientists so far, under conditions of enormous pressure at the bottom, they somehow miraculously manage to keep their mineral shell intact. Similar abilities are shown by other inhabitants of the Mariana Trench. The study of fauna samples showed a multiple excess of the level of radiation and toxic substances.

Unfortunately, deep sea creatures die due to the change in pressure with any attempt to bring them to the surface. Only thanks to modern deep-sea vehicles it became possible to study the inhabitants of the depression in their natural environment. Representatives of the fauna unknown to science have already been identified.

Secrets and mysteries of the "womb of Gaia"

The mysterious abyss, like any unknown phenomenon, is shrouded in a mass of secrets and mysteries. What does she hide in her depths? Japanese scientists claimed that while feeding goblin sharks, they saw a shark 25 meters long devouring goblins. A monster of this size could only be a megalodon shark, which became extinct almost 2 million years ago! Confirmation is the findings of megalodon teeth in the vicinity of the Mariana Trench, whose age dates back to only 11 thousand years. It can be assumed that specimens of these monsters are still preserved in the depths of the failure.

There are many stories about the corpses of giant monsters thrown ashore. When descending into the abyss of the German bathyscaphe "Highfish", the dive stopped 7 km from the surface. To understand the reason, the passengers of the capsule turned on the lights and were horrified: their bathyscaphe, like a nut, was trying to crack open some prehistoric lizard! Only by impulse electric current on the outer skin managed to scare away the monster.

On another occasion, when an American submersible was submerging, a scraping of metal began to be heard from under the water. The descent was stopped. When inspecting the lifted equipment, it turned out that the titanium alloy metal cable was half sawn (or gnawed), and the beams of the underwater vehicle were bent.

In 2012, the video camera of the unmanned vehicle "Titan" from a depth of 10 kilometers transmitted a picture of metal objects, presumably UFOs. Soon the connection with the device was interrupted.

Unfortunately, there is no documentary evidence of these interesting facts not available, they are all based only on eyewitness accounts. Every story has its fans and skeptics, its pros and cons.

Before a risky dive into the trench, James Cameron said that he wanted to see with his own eyes at least some of those secrets of the Mariana Trench, about which there are so many rumors and legends. But he did not see anything that would go beyond the cognizable.

So what do we know about her?

To understand how the Mariana Underwater Gap was formed, it should be remembered that such gaps (troughs) are usually formed along the edges of the oceans under the action of moving lithospheric plates. The oceanic plates, being older and heavier, "creep" under the continental ones, forming deep dips at the junctions. The deepest is the junction of the Pacific and Philippine tectonic plates near the Mariana Islands (Marian Trench). The Pacific Plate is moving at a speed of 3-4 centimeters per year, resulting in increased volcanic activity along both of its edges.

Throughout the length of this deepest failure, four so-called bridges were found - transverse mountain ranges. The ridges were presumably formed due to the movement of the lithosphere and volcanic activity.

The gutter is V-shaped in cross-section, strongly widening upwards and narrowing downwards. The average width of the canyon in the upper part is 69 kilometers, in the widest part - up to 80 kilometers. The average width of the bottom between the walls is 5 kilometers. The slope of the walls is almost sheer and is only 7-8°. The depression stretches from north to south for 2500 kilometers. The trough has an average depth of about 10,000 meters.

Only three people have been to the very bottom of the Mariana Trench to date. In 2018, another manned dive to the “bottom of the world” is planned at its deepest section. This time, the well-known Russian traveler Fyodor Konyukhov and polar explorer Artur Chilingarov will try to conquer the depression and find out what it hides in its depths. At present, a deep-sea bathyscaphe is being manufactured and a research program is being drawn up.

Diving Trieste into the Mariana Trench

The most mysterious and inaccessible point of our planet - the Mariana Trench - is called the "fourth pole of the Earth" (North and South are geographic poles, Mount Everest and the Mariana Trench are geomorphological). The depression is located in the western part of the Pacific Ocean and extends 2926 km long and 80 km wide. At a distance of 320 km south of the island of Guam (Marian archipelago) is the deepest point of the Mariana Trench and the entire planet - 11,022 meters below sea level. Living beings also live in these little-studied depths.

At first, man's immersion in the ocean pursued purely practical tasks: repairing the underwater parts of ships or port facilities, etc. And only many years later did man begin to dive into the depths for scientific purposes. But the realization of this long-standing dream of man was associated with extremely great difficulties. First of all, a person had to be isolated from the huge pressure of water. With every 10 meters of depth, the pressure increases by 1 atm.

Bathyscaphe "Trieste"

The first underwater apparatus for human immersion, the so-called diving bell, was built in 1538 in the Spanish city of Toledo and tested on the Tajo River. In 1660, the German physicist I.X. Storm and in 1717 the English astronomer and geophysicist E. Halley built more advanced diving bells. Halley's bell, despite the fact that it was wooden, was immersed to a depth of 20 m and had a special hole for exhaling air. In 1719, a peasant in the village of Pokrovskoye near Moscow, Efim Nikonov, proposed the first autonomous diving equipment and created a project for the first submarine, which he called the "secret ship". At the direction of Peter I, such a ship was built, but during the tests it was damaged. After the death of Peter I, the government denied Nikonov the funds necessary to repair the ship, and the invention was forgotten.

Later, many new designs of diving equipment appeared, but only in the last quarter of the 19th century. managed to create such technical devices that allowed a person to work freely under water. In 1882, the first diving school in Russia was opened. In 1930, our divers already descended to depths of 100–110 m in special space suits. Currently, suits allow a person to dive to depths of more than 200 m. These heavy diving suits are designed for rescue, repair and other work.

Explorers of the seas and oceans needed light diving apparatuses that would provide greater mobility of a person under water. Such devices - scuba gear - were created in the 40s of the XX century. French engineers. The record depth of human diving in scuba gear is just over 100 m.

But neither heavy, nor even lighter diving suits provide immersion of a person to great depths.

To solve this problem, engineers in many countries have developed underwater vehicles - hydrostats and bathyspheres, which were lowered from the ship on steel cables. Their disadvantage was unpleasant jerks during the descent, which threatened to break the cable.

In the USSR, the hydrostat was built in 1923, and for many years work was carried out on it in the Black Sea and the Gulf of Finland. In subsequent years, improved hydrostats GKS-6, Sever-1, etc. were built in our country. With their help, it was possible to dive to a depth of 600 m. Hydrostats were also built in the USA, Italy and other countries.

In the 40s, new underwater vehicles appeared - bathyscaphes, which could independently move, dive and emerge from great depths. Bathyscaphe is a tank with a light incompressible liquid (gasoline), to which ballast and a thick-walled steel cabin-sphere with people are suspended. Movement is provided by propellers and electric motors. Buoyancy is controlled by dropping ballast and releasing gasoline. The first bathyscaphe was created in 1948 by the Swiss Auguste Picard and named FNRS-2.

An interesting fact is that O. Picard first conquered the stratosphere on the stratosphere balloon he invented and reached a height of 16,370 m (1932), then he became interested in the sea depths.

In August 1953, J. Guo and P. Vilm on the bathyscaphe PNRS-3 dived to a depth of 2100 m. This record lasted only a month and a half. At the end of September 1953, O. Picard and his son J. Picard on the Trieste bathyscaphe in the Atlantic off the coast West Africa reached a depth of 3150 m. But in February 1954, J. Guo and P. Vilm in the same region of the ocean sank to a depth of 4050 m and set a new record.

In 1957, the United States purchased and refitted the Trieste, and in 1959 a new series of record-breaking dives began. On November 15, 1959, in the Mariana Islands of the Pacific Ocean, Trieste reached a depth of 5530 m, and on January 8, 1960 - 7025 m. Jacques Picard participated in both of these dives, in the first case with Andreas Rechnitzer and in the second with Don Walsh.

And on January 23, 1960, the greatest event in the history of human penetration into the depths of the ocean. Jacques Piccard and Don Walsh dived in the Trieste submersible in the Mariana Trench of the Pacific Ocean and reached the bottom at a depth of 10,912 m (the maximum depth of the trench is 11,022 m). The Trieste remained at the bottom of the Mariana Trench for 30 minutes. Scientists have seen for themselves that, despite the enormous pressure (1100 atm.), The deepest layers of ocean water are inhabited by living organisms. The researchers measured the temperature (+3.0 o C) and the radioactivity of the water at the very bottom of the depression.

In the USSR, the USA, Japan and other countries, scientists and engineers also worked on the creation of controlled underwater vehicles for the study of medium depths. Scientific oceanographic submarines and mesoscaphes became such devices. So far, submarines have become more widespread. The first of these, the Soviet Severyanka, has been conducting research in the Barents Sea since 1958.

In the United States in the 60s, two-seat baby boats "Kabmarin" and "Nautilette" were built for biological and geological research at shallow depths. The same capacity and the submarine "Alvin", the depth of its immersion reached 1850 m. With its help explored the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. The Aluminaut four-seater boat could reach 4500 m. In Japan in 1968, the Shinkai four-seater research submarine was built. It was designed for oceanographic, fishing and geological observations at depths up to 600 m.

Another type of submersible - a double "diving saucer" "Denise" - was built in France. This apparatus is a compact flat design with a diameter of only 2.85 m and a height of 1.4 m. It is transported on a ship and immersed in water as needed. "Deniza" can navigate at depths up to 300 m and at a distance of 3 nautical miles (5.5 km).

In the USSR, the underwater manned vehicles "Argus" (depth up to 600 m) and built in Canada "Pisis-XI" (depth up to 2000 m) became famous. Pisis reached the bottom of Lake Baikal.

The conquest of the depths of the ocean by man was extremely important, especially for the study of living organisms and the geology of the bottom. With the help of underwater vehicles, new data were obtained on the optical and acoustic properties of the water of the oceans and seas.

As for the Mariana Trench, according to some ichthyologists, due to the presence of active hydrothermal springs at its bottom, colonies of prehistoric marine animals that have survived to this day can exist.

There is evidence that in 1918, lobster fishermen from the city of Port Stephens (Australia) saw an amazing transparent white fish 35 meters long in the sea. It was clear that this fish had surfaced from a great depth. Many researchers believe that the Mariana Trench hides in its unexplored depths the last surviving representatives of the giant prehistoric shark species Carcharodon megalodon. Based on the few surviving remains, scientists have recreated the appearance of the megalodon. This predator lived in the seas 2–2.5 million years ago and was of monstrous size: about 24 meters long, weighing 100 tons, and the width of its mouth, dotted with 10 cm teeth, reached 1.8–2.0 m - megalodon could easily swallow automobile.

Recently, while exploring the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, oceanographers found perfectly preserved megalodon teeth. One of the finds was 24 thousand years old, and the other was even younger - 11 thousand years! So, not all megalodons died out 2 million years ago?

During one of the dives in the area of ​​the Mariana Trench, the German research apparatus "Hyfish" with a crew on board, being at a depth of 7 km, suddenly "refused" to emerge. Trying to understand the reason for this, the hydronauts turned on the infrared camera. What they saw at first seemed to them a collective hallucination: a huge, resembling a prehistoric lizard, a creature sank its teeth into the body of the bathyscaphe, trying to crack it like a nut ... Having come to their senses, the crew activated a device called an “electric gun”. Struck by a powerful discharge, the monster unclenched its terrible jaws and disappeared into the darkness of the abyss ...

The dive into the abyss of the Mariana Trench of the American unmanned submersible platform has sensationally ended. Equipped with powerful searchlights, highly sensitive sensors and television cameras, it descended into the depths of the ocean using a steel net woven from 20 mm thick cables. After the bathyscaphe reached the bottom, cameras and microphones did not register anything significant for several hours. And then suddenly on the screens of television monitors in the beams of spotlights flashed the silhouettes of strange huge bodies. When the device was hastily raised to the surface, part of its structures turned out to be bent.

And in 2004, the British magazine New Scientist spoke in detail about mysterious sounds in the depths of the Pacific Ocean, spotted by underwater sensors of the American SOSUS tracking system. It was created during the Cold War to monitor Soviet submarines. Specialists who studied recordings of signals from highly sensitive hydrophones identified, against the background of noise, which is the “call signs” of various marine life, a much more powerful sound, clearly emitted by some creature living in the ocean. This mysterious signal, first recorded in 1977, is much more powerful than those infrasounds that large whales use to communicate with each other at a distance of hundreds of kilometers from each other.

11°22" N, 142°35" E

SOUTHWEST GUAM, WESTERN PACIFIC

Morning, not yet dawn. My Deepsea Challenger bathyscaphe is tossed from side to side in the giant waves of the Pacific Ocean. From midnight, we are all on our feet and after a couple of hours of restless sleep, we begin to prepare equipment for diving. Today conditions for diving are not the most favorable.

The cockpit is a steel ball with a diameter of 109 centimeters. I'm wrapped in it like a walnut in a shell. I sit with my knees bent and my head resting on the ceiling. I will have to maintain this position for the next eight hours. My bare heels rest on a 180-kilogram manhole cover, battened down from the outside. I am often asked if I have bouts of claustrophobia in the bathyscaphe. Not at all, I feel comfortable and pleasant here. Before my eyes I have three video monitors transmitting images from external cameras, and a touch control panel.

The bright green bathyscaphe hovered in the waves like a vertical torpedo aimed at the center of the earth. I turn my 3D camera mounted on the end of a 1.8m hydraulic arm to see what's happening above the machine. The divers prepared to disconnect the bathyscaphe from the floating balloon holding the apparatus on the surface of the water.

I have been waiting for this moment for a long time and in the last few weeks I have thought a lot about what will happen if everything does not go according to plan. But now I'm surprisingly calm. No worries, no fears - only the determination to do what we have planned, and childish impatience. I am inside the bathyscaphe... I took part in the design of this apparatus and thoroughly know all its capabilities and weaknesses. After weeks of training, my hand is unmistakably reaching for the right switches.

Its time to begin. I take a deep breath and turn on the microphone: "OK, ready to dive. Let go, let go, let go!"

The lead diver pulls the line and disconnects the floatation tank. The bathyscaphe falls down like a stone, and after a few seconds the divers seem like toy figures far above. They rapidly decrease and disappear; only darkness remains. I glance at the instruments and see that I am descending at a speed of about 150 meters per minute. After a lifetime of dreams, seven years of designing a bathyscaphe, difficult months of building it, stress and excitement, I am finally approaching the Challenger Trench, the deepest point in the oceans.

05:50, DEPTH 3810 METERS, DIVE SPEED 1.8 M/S

In just 35 minutes, I'm going through the depths of the Titanic four times faster than on the Russian submersible Mir, which we used in 1995 to film the remains of the famous ship. At that time, it seemed to me that the Titanic was lying at an unimaginable depth and going to it was like flying to the moon.

After another 15 minutes, I pass 4760 meters, the depth at which the battleship Bismarck lies. When in 2002 I explored the remains of this ship, the searchlight lamp exploded right above the skin of our bathyscaphe. That was the first time I witnessed an underwater explosion. The temperature of the water outside dropped from thirty degrees Celsius to two. My cockpit is rapidly cooling down, its walls covered with large drops of condensate. Bare feet against the metal manhole cover begin to freeze; it takes me a few minutes to put on wool socks and waterproof boots in this cramped space. Then I pull on a wool cap to shield my head from the cold, wet steel pressing down from above. In the darkness surrounding me, the only hints of movement are bits of plankton flashing in the spotlight, as if I'm driving a car through a snowstorm.

06:33, DEPTH 7070 METERS, DIVE SPEED 1.4 M/S

I have just passed the deepest depth a man has ever dived, the level of the Chinese Zhaolong. A few minutes ago I passed the depths to which the Russian "Mir", the French "Nautilus" and the Japanese "Shinkai" descended - six and a half thousand meters.

06:46, DEPTH 8230 METERS, DIVE SPEED 1.3 M/S

I just broke my own solo dive record set three weeks ago in the New Britain Trench near Papua New Guinea. It's hard to believe that I still have 2740 meters to go. I have passed all the points on my descent checklist, and now, during this long and silent fall, all I can do is watch the numbers on the depth indicator increase. The only sound I hear is a rare hiss from the oxygen solenoid. If the bathyscaphe leaks, the water will shoot out with the force of a laser beam, cutting through everything in its path, including the thick steel walls of my cabin and me ...

07:43, DEPTH 10,850 METERS, DIVE SPEED 0.26 M/S

Another hour passed. At the last 2740 meters, the bathyscaphe slowed down. I dropped some metal ballast plates held on the hull by electromagnets to level the craft. I descend very slowly, under pressure alone. Judging by the altimeter readings, there are still 46 meters to the bottom. All cameras are working, spotlights are directed downwards. I gripped the controls and stared at the black monitors. 30 meters… 27… 24… 21… 18… Finally I see light reflecting off the bottom. The bottom itself looks as smooth as an eggshell, no roughness, nothing that would help determine the distance. I brake lightly with the vertical levers. Five seconds later, the bathyscaphe hits the bottom.

I'm not sure yet if it's a hard surface. The water is clear as glass. I look far ahead - nothing. The bottom is completely flat. Having made more than 80 dives, I have seen different seabeds. But never like this!

07:46, DEPTH 10,898.5 METERS

I direct the bathyscaphe even lower. From an external camera mounted on a hydraulic arm, I can see how the bathyscaphe's support falls another 10 centimeters before it stops. The descent took two and a half hours. A voice is heard from above me: "Deepsea Challenger, this is land. Checking the connection." The voice is faint, but very clear. And we were worried that voice communication would not work at such a depth!

I turn on the microphone. "Land, this is the Deepsea Challenger. I'm at the bottom. Depth - 10898 meters, life support systems are working fine, everything is in order."

It takes a few seconds before my words rise up from the underwater world at the speed of sound, and the answer reaches me: "Repeat." Most of those who built the bathyscaphe are now in the control room, and they still do not fully understand what we have done ... Ten thousand eight hundred ninety-eight and a half ...

But now I need to forget about the first success and get to work. We have planned that I will spend five hours at the bottom, and there is still a lot to do. I turn the submersible and through the cameras I try to look around the world into which I have arrived. The bottom is flat. I fire up the engines, open the science bay's outer hatch, and swing the arm around to take the first sediment sample from the bottom. If in ten minutes all the equipment fails, at least I will bring samples for scientists.

Silt sample on board. I take a moment to take a close-up picture of a Rolex Deepsea watch from a Swiss company partner in our expedition. Mounted on the arm of the manipulator, they are still ticking, despite the pressure of 1147 kilograms per square centimeter. In 1960, as part of a project, US Air Force Lieutenant Don Walsh and Swiss oceanographer Jacques Piccard descended to the same depth in the massive bathyscaphe Trieste, the only two people who have ever managed to do what I do today. They also took with them a Rolex specially made for the expedition, and it withstood the pressure perfectly.

But not everything works so flawlessly. A few moments after I took the picture of the clock, my eyes fall on floating yellow oil balls. The hydraulic system is leaking. A few minutes later, I lose control of the sample collection crane and the science bay hatch. I can no longer take samples, but the cameras are still working, and I continue the study.

09:10, DEPTH 10,897 METERS, SPEED 0.26 M/S

With the help of pushers, I move north through a flat plane dammed with sedimentary deposits. The surface resembles an empty parking lot that has just snowed. I don’t see any signs of active life at the bottom, only rare amphipods, tiny as snowflakes, swim by from time to time. Soon I should stumble upon the "wall" of the cavity. I know from our sonar charts that it's not exactly a wall, but rather a rather gentle hill.

While I watch everything through the cameras. It then takes me a couple of minutes to move the equipment back a little and get into a position where I can look straight out the window. No one had ever seen this place before: although Walsh and Picard reached the same depth, they plunged 37 kilometers west of the Challenger Basin, to a point that was later called the Vityaz-1 depression.

All other seabed surfaces that I have visited, even at a depth of 8230 meters in the New British Trench, have traces of worms and sea cucumbers. There is not a single sign of developed - not primitive - forms of life. I understand that the surface of the cavity is not actually lifeless, in the sample I took, we will almost certainly find new types of bacteria. But the feeling that I have descended to the border of life itself does not leave me.

I feel insignificantly small in front of the infinity of everything that we do not know. I understand how small the candle that I have lit here in these few minutes is, and how much remains to be done for the knowledge of our vast world.

10:25 DEPTH 10,877 METERS SPEED 0.26 M/S

I have found the northern slope and carefully climb its undulating ridge. I'm almost a mile north of where I landed. So far, no rock outcrops. While traveling along the flat bottom of the depression, I found and photographed two possible signs of life: a gelatinous ball lying at the bottom, smaller than a child's fist, and a dark stripe one and a half meters long, which may be the home of some underground worm. Both finds are mysterious and unlike anything I have seen on previous dives. I've taken high-resolution photographs, and I'll leave the scientists to puzzle over them.

But in the meantime, a couple of batteries that power the bathyscaphe are discharged, the compass is faulty, and the sonar does not work at all. In addition, I lost two of the three engines on the starboard side, so the bathyscaphe moves slowly and became more difficult to control. All these are the consequences of the strongest pressure. I hurry, realizing that time is short, but I hope to reach steep cliffs - something similar I observed in the New British Trench: they were inhabited by a population of living organisms completely different from those that lived on the flat surface of the depression.

Suddenly I feel that the bathyscaphe is tilting to the right, and I check what is happening with the engines. The last starboard engine failed. Now I can't collect samples and take pictures, so staying here is useless. I spent less than three hours at the bottom. Reluctantly, I call for dry land and tell the crew I'm ready to go.

10:30, DEPTH 10,877 METERS, SPEED 3 M/S

You always hesitate a little before pressing the switch that is responsible for dumping the ballast. If the loads don't drop, you won't come home. I've been designing the weight release mechanism for several years, and the engineers who built and tested it did a great job: it's probably the most reliable system in the whole bathyscaphe.

Click. The familiar "thump" is heard, as soon as two 243-kilogram loads slide off the track and fall to the bottom, the bathyscaphe lists - and the bottom immediately disappears in complete darkness.

I feel the submersible resist and sway on its way up. I am moving at a speed of more than three meters per second - not a single bathyscaphe has risen faster yet, I will be on the surface in a maximum of an hour and a half. I imagine the pressure pushing the bathyscaphe out like a huge python that couldn't crush its prey and is now slowly loosening its grip. The numbers on the depth indicator decrease and I feel better.

Eight months after the Deepsea Challenger completed its expedition, the team announced the preliminary results of scientific research. Analysis of photographs and samples collected during the dive in the Mariana Trench revealed various life forms. 20 thousand microorganisms were raised from the bottom of the Challenger Trench. The fauna collected included isopods and six species of shrimp-like amphipods. One amphipod from the Challenger Trench produces chemical compound, which is currently being tested as a cure for Alzheimer's disease. Further analysis of the expedition's data may shed light on the theory of adaptation of organisms to high pressure.

Another surprise was the recalculation of Cameron's dive depth. Precise calculations show that the bathyscaphe reached a depth of 10,908 meters, and not 10,898, the depth recorded by the instrument during the dive. For comparison: "Trieste" in 1960 reached a depth of 10,912 meters.

national geographic