Dive to the Bottom of the World — There's a place in the ocean so deep that if Mt Everest sat on the spot, there would still be a mile of water overhead. It's called the Challenger Deep, and lies in the Mariana Trench in th... more »e Western Pacific. At 35,000 feet, it is the deepest place on Earth. Detailed maps of the surrounding seafloor show it as a sort of bottomless hole with no details, no topography, very little known. It's an environment as extreme as any on Earth. At present, there is no capability to go to the Challenger Deep, explore it, and discover what's there. But why would anyone want to go there in the first place? Because, deep in the dark, lie clues to some of our most basic and pressing questions - how does the Earth work, and how did life arise on it? To go after the answers, the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) has assembled a team of its most experienced and capable scientists and engineers to do the best work of their careers, and make ready to dive to this deepest place in the world. Beginning now and through 2006, the team will plan a mission to the Challenger Deep, then design and build a one-of-a-kind deepest diving vehicle - a Hybrid Remotely Operated Vehicle - to execute it. "Hybrid" because the HROV will operate in two modes. In mode one, it will be programmed to run completely on its own; in mode two, a crew will pilot the vehicle from the surface by means of a long, fiber optic control tether. Cracking the Ocean Code
Join genome pioneer J Craig Venter on a globe-circling ocean voyage, seeking new life forms and genetic secrets that could help solve the planet s most urgent energy and climate challenges.Ocean Voyagers
A humpback whale mother prepares her newborn for the 4,000 mile voyage from the waters of the South Pacific to their natural feeding territory in Antartica.« less