The very barren bottom of the Mariana Trench has a visitor tonight: filmmaker James Cameron. After years of preparation, Cameron has descended 35,756 feet (10,898 meters) beneath the ocean’s surface in his 12-ton lime-green submarine called “Deepsea Challenger.”
It’s a mission filled with near-constant danger. The 6.8-mile (10.94-km) deep trench allows not a hint of sunlight from above, is just a few degrees above freezing temperature, and will put eight tons of pressure per square inch on the filmmaker. That’s equivalent to three SUVs sitting on your toe, researchers have determined.
In fact, everything about Cameron’s dive is at a nearly incomprehensible scale. The trench is 120 times larger than the Grand Canyon and is more than a mile deeper than Mount Everest is tall.
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