Sonar mapping of the Challenger Deep by the DSSV Pressure Drop
36,070 feet below sea level! This is how deep the deepest point in the Earth's seabed is. Compare that number with the fact that 12,080 feet is the average depth of the ocean. To make it simpler, compare it to the fact that Titanic's wreckage lies at about 12,500 feet underwater! If that brings back memories of the epic Hollywood movie, you must have understood how deep the deepest point of the ocean would be.
The point is known by the name of Challenger Deep, and is located in the Mariana Trench in the western Pacific Ocean. It lies in the territory of the Federated States of Micronesia. Its extraordinary depth makes it a place of immense scientific interest as the conditions at Challenger Deep are extreme, with immense pressure, near-freezing temperatures, and complete darkness.
The precise point, Challenger Deep, is a relatively small depression in a bigger trench, which is also a deep oceanic trench. It consists of three basins, each of these are 6 to 10 km long. To fathom its depth, it's 2 km deeper than the peak of Mt Everest, so imagine an inverted Everest plus 2 more km added to its height! Well, that is a scary proposition. The temperature at Challenger Deep usually hovers between 1 to 4 degree Celsius, with a pressure of 15,750 psi, which is 1,071 times more than the standard atmospheric pressure at sea level.
Now, this might come as a surprise that despite these harsh conditions, life still exists in this remote part of the ocean. The region was first surveyed in 1875 during the HMS Challenger expedition, thus it is named so as well. It has since been visited by a handful of manned and unmanned submersibles for research purposes and to collect samples from a largely unexplored part of our planet.
