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[...] In December, explorer and investor Victor Vescovo, along with scientist Alan Jamieson from Newcastle University, are embarking on a groundbreaking mission more than 6.5 miles under the waves. The two are heading out in a new $48 million dollar submarine system to better map the bottom of the world's five oceans.
They're calling the mission, which will be the first time people travel to the bottom of each of the world's seas, "Five Deeps."
"Our depth of ignorance about the oceans is quite dramatic," Vescovo said as he introduced the mission to an audience in New York. "Four of the oceans have never even had a human being go to their bottom. In fact, we don't even know with great certainty where the bottom of the four are."
First up on the five-dive trip will be the Puerto Rico Trench, the deepest point in the Atlantic Ocean. It's a spot no human has ever explored, and it's so deep that any communications from the submarine will take seven seconds to travel back up.
The team believes it's possible to find a location deeper than the Challenger Deep.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by ledow on Tuesday November 13 2018, @08:12AM (7 children)
"and it's so deep that any communications from the submarine will take seven seconds to travel back up."
Wow, the speed of light is a lot slower than I thought.
Or they're talking bollocks.
Given that light can circle the Earth 7 times in a second, there's nowhere on Earth that is more than 1/7th of a second out of communication when using radio, light or electricity.
So what the hell are they using to communicate? Carrier pigeon?
(Score: 4, Informative) by maxwell demon on Tuesday November 13 2018, @08:34AM (4 children)
Light (and radio) doesn't travel well through kilometers of seawater. What is relevant here is the speed of sound in seawater, which is about 1.5 km/s.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 13 2018, @09:26AM (3 children)
But it does through the attached fibre optic cable.
(Score: 2) by dltaylor on Tuesday November 13 2018, @01:18PM
I've looked at the text and pictures on Triton Subs web site http://tritonsubs.com/hadal/ [tritonsubs.com] and do not see any evidence of a fibre optic tether.
The Triton 36000/2 appears to be completely free of any surface support other than deployment, retrieval, and maintenance aboard the support vessel.
(Score: 1) by jjr on Tuesday November 13 2018, @01:42PM (1 child)
Carrying kilometers of cable? I don't think so. Aside the weight it adds it could easily snap and break, or get tangled in rocks, so they will probably use ELF radio waves like current submarines do.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday November 13 2018, @10:23PM
If the 7 second quip is to be believed, they clearly are not using ELF radio but some form of sonic communication - like whalesong, but I'd bet they have a modulation scheme to keep it free-er from interference in the water column...
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by deadstick on Tuesday November 13 2018, @12:58PM
Sound, Professor.
(Score: 2) by edIII on Tuesday November 13 2018, @07:57PM
Don't be silly. They're clearly EOL, and everyone knows that...
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.