The Marianas Trench is the deepest location on the planet, and it’s under the deepest depths of the ocean too. If you were to compare the Marianas Trench to Mt. Everest, you would find that the Marianas Trench is over 6,000 feet deeper than Mt. Everest is high. The deepest points are about 7 miles below sea level.
Now, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is currently exploring much of these depths with a robotic submarine known as the Okeanos Explorer that has been built to withstand the crushing pressures at those depths of the ocean as deep as 6,000 feet to learn more about the vastly unexplored world that is our ocean.
Unfortunately, that's not nearly as low as the Marianas Trench goes, so there is still much to be learned.
Guided by satellites and being controlled remotely from a ship, the NOAA sub has its lights on and is slowly swimming around. Researchers are keeping their eyes on the cameras to in the hopes to see anything the sub can see. Among the things the team hopes to find are signs of new life forms, samples of sediment, and any unexpected surprises.
Along the way, the NOAA will be mapping the unmapped regions of the Marianas Trench to help us get a better understanding of these unexplored parts of our oceans. Although we can't yet get to the bottom of the ocean floor in the Marianas Trench, we can still get a preliminary look at the Marianas Trench and try to map out what is possible to map out from these capable depths.
The NOAA is hosting three live cameras on their YouTube channel, respectively named Camera 1, Camera 2, and Camera 3, which keep an eye on the computer screen, ship deck, and the eyes of the sub from its point of view.
These videos will continue to stream live through to the middle of July, but obviously there will be times when the sub is inactive and hence the videos will be paused until the next activity begins. (Scientists need to sleep too!)
Nevertheless, if you are interested, you can always tune in from the following YouTube videos to watch the exploration:
