Research Vehicle Reaches the Bottom of the Ocean
timothy found BBC coverage of the voyage of the Nereus, which on May 31 dove to the bottom of the Challenger Deep in the Marianas Trench. Only two vehicles have accomplished this feat before, the last 11 years ago. "The unmanned vehicle is remotely operated by pilots aboard a surface ship via a lightweight tether. Its thin, fibre-optic tether to the research vessel Kilo Moana allows the submersible to make deep dives and be highly manoeuvrable. Nereus can also be switched into a free-swimming, autonomous vehicle. ... The Challenger Deep... is the deepest abyss on Earth at 11,000m-deep, more than 2km (1.2 miles) deeper than Mount Everest is high. At that depth, pressures reach 1,100 times those at the surface."
Aye aye, Captain!
Wow, that is great. Hope they find some interesting stuff down there. Maybe some animals we didn't even know existed. Next up: Building the Seaquest
Will see a craft reach the surface of one of the gaseous giants. Now that would be a helluva science and engineering project.
An Education is the Font of All Liberty
Do they have a good pizza/wing place down there?
Have you fscked your local propeller head today?
Plus all the boats that sank.
off-topic. soapbox's are over 2 aisles.
submersibles actually manage to stay at the bottom of the trench for extended lengths of time? Short visits can only tell scientists so much about ordinary conditions. A permanent unmaned observation station could record a much larger data sample. Now all that's left to do is develop technologies that can withstand the pressure and power themselves of sulphur-feeding clamlike tube creatures.
#Computers do not appreciate sarcasm
Somebody smarter than myself, please comment on why we need a cable over a distance of 11km? There's a ton of off-the-shelf radio equipment that can easily handle that distance with very high bitrates.
I can imagine two possible problems:
First, the ocean might simply be good at blocking transmissions.
Second, the varying pressures and temperatures might distort a signal to the point where it is unusable. I'm referring to dielectric effects and the fact that the dielectric constant would not be constant in this sort of operation. But would it be "constant-enough"?
It may give us access to 100% of the sea floor, but given the expense of sea exploration, how much will we actually explore? Setting records is nice and all, but it takes time, effort, and money to map the deep sea floor in any kind of detail.
It should be able to take samples and such, but what about repeat dives? The artile was a bit lacking, but hopefully google will turn up the juicy details on this particular little bot....
Not to belittle the achievement, but how hard can it be to make something that won't crumple? Does every bit of equipment need to be at 1 atmosphere for it to function? Are there no solid-state components?
to the walmart setup down there by one of the previous vehicles.
MEGATRON!!!!
Is that they found an undersea kingdom full of nubile, singing mermaids wearing clamshell bras.
Disney and Universal are in a bidding war for the rights.
Megatron for me.....
The last time this happened was seven hours ago. And the slashdot post announcing it appears to be identical...
There's active work going on with underwater radio. It's really tough to do in salt water. But it's not quite impossible. There's considerable interest in making something that can push data through 100 meters of water depth. Oil industry operations would like to talk to their stuff on the ocean floor.
At longer ranges, there's at least one research project which claims that there's a transmission window in seawater between 1MHz and 10MHz. They hope to get data across 1KM. That will be useful if it works.
ELF works; the US and the USSR both have used it in the 70-85 Hz band. The trouble with ELF is that the wavelengths are so long at 80Hz that you need an antenna the size of a county.
"They said it was hauled from the Challenger Deep, but I'm positive that beast never swam in terrestrial waters until a week ago."
if the answer isn't violence, neither is your silence / freedom of expression doesn't make it alright
I worked on an ROV simulation back in the 90's and we needed to keep track of how many times the ROV turned around because twists accumulate in the cable. At some point you may have to sit in place and spin for a bit to undo the twists. Terrible things happen when the tether gets too twisted.
We call out to the beasts of the sea to come forth and join us, this night is yours
Because, one day we will all be with you in the black and deep
One day we will all go into the water
Man, I need that to help wake up.
It's getting back to the surface intact that's the trick.
as everyone here knows, the deepest abyss on Earth is goatse.
P.S. why am I getting "useless" as captcha?
Which depends as wavelength to the fourth power. so lower frequency, higher wavelength, more scattering.
That's why the sky is blue, for example.
The red of sunset is due to scattering from dust particles which is a different mechanism because of the size.
Remove the water, carry the water!
Remove the water, from the bottom of the ocean!
-
You know it is interesting that we have sent a sub down there, but it would have been cool to also send down tech that could record any sealife down there on webcam...and place beacons per each say 1000ft to be able to keep sending commands down to each camera to be able to control their movement...pan right up down...etc... We were able to send 2 rovers to the moon, could we not just do something to leave behind to record, so we don't have to keep going down there every 11 years...
Didn't the Titanic already make this journey? /Oh, you meant "and returned". //My bad...
I am the unwilling control for my Origin.
Currently, the deepest-rated vehicles are able to descend to 6,500m, allowing scientists access to 95% of the seafloor.
Deep Flight Challenger
Deep Flight Challenger was built to enable adventurer, Steve Fossett, to set the ultimate solo dive record for all time (37,000 feet). Unfortunately Fossett perished in a plane crash before he could dive the submersible to record depth. Hawkes Ocean Technologies is now the only organization in the world that has full ocean depth technology.
Flight endurance: full ocean depth and back in 5 hours
Speed: Cruise 2.2 knots; Max 3 knots
Ascent/Descent Rate:350 feet/second at +/- 45 degrees
Operating Depth: 37,000 fsw
Crew: 1
http://www.deepflight.com/subs/df_challenger.htm
37,000 feet > 6,500m normally. News reporters seldom seem to actually fully understand reality or what they are reporting, is it any wonder that the rest of the news sounds so distorted and that headlines are usually one way hashes?
---
Granted, it wasn't he really deep parts.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
You might be able to use light, though I don't know how far that would get. Certainly it's dark on the ocean floor, even in full daylight. In fact I think it's pretty dark after a couple hundred feet.
However, a high power laser of optimum wavelength might blast a ways through it, at least enough for a glimmer to show up on the receiving end.
How you would power such a thing on the bottom of the ocean for an extended period beats me.
Perhaps a relay team of dolphins could pass the message along...
"11,000m-deep, more than 2km (1.2 miles) deeper than Mount Everest is high." WTF? Someone is confused. It *is* deeper than Everest is tall though...
You have: 29000 feet
You want: miles
* 5.4924242
/ 0.18206897
You have: 11000 meters
You want: miles
* 6.8350831
/ 0.146304
In related news, researchers have also discovered who actually lives in a pineapple under the sea.
News at 11.
If you do what you always did, you get what you always got.
How about some ocean bottom Extreme Ironing?
Mal-2
How is the Riemann zeta function like Trump rallies? Both have an endless number of trivial zeros.
http://hittingmetalwithahammer.wordpress.com/category/dinocam/
So, did they see the plug?
-- Gary Goldberg KA3ZYW 301/249-6501 AIM:OgGreeb Digital Marketing Inc., Bowie, MD
Idiot. Lazy idiot.