Challenger Deep dive

Jacques Piccard · 1960 CE · Earth

Reach the deepest point of the ocean.

Historical context

The deepest ocean trench was as unreachable as the Moon, and bathyscaphes were the only vehicles that could survive the pressure. The 1960 dive would not be repeated for fifty-two years.

The voyage, step by step

1. Towed out from Guam

   1960 CE

   The Trieste is dragged three days across open sea from Apra Harbour to a patch of water eleven kilometres deep.

2. Descending into the trench

   23 January 1960

   On 23 January 1960 Piccard and Don Walsh seal themselves into a steel sphere and begin a fall of four hours and forty-eight minutes.

3. Through the cold layers

   1960 CE

   They vent petrol to sink faster, passing layers of colder water that hold the craft up like a raft on syrup.

4. A bang at nine thousand metres

   1960 CE

   A loud crack shakes the whole craft: a window in the entrance tunnel has split under the pressure.

5. The deepest point on Earth

   1960 CE

   At 13:06 they settle onto a floor of pale ooze nearly eleven kilometres down and spend twenty minutes there.

6. Something alive on the floor

   1960 CE

   In the searchlight Piccard reports a flat, sole-like fish and a shrimp moving away over the silt.

7. Three hours back to daylight

   1960 CE

   They drop their iron ballast and rise for three hours and fifteen minutes, surfacing at 16:56 into the afternoon sun.

Outcome

Reached the bottom of the Challenger Deep.

Jacques Piccard

Swiss oceanographer who descended with Don Walsh to the deepest point of the ocean in the bathyscaphe Trieste.

Read on Wikipedia

Sources

• Jacques Piccard — Wikipedia

Continue exploring

• The search for USS ThresherTrieste (the Thresher search) · 1963 CE
• Calypso in the Red Sea and Indian OceanJacques Cousteau · 1955 CE
• Trieste's first deep divesAuguste Piccard · 1953 CE
• The Galápagos Rift hydrothermal expeditionJack Corliss and the Alvin team · 1977 CE