The Challenger Deep is the deepest known point of the seabed of Earth, located in the western Pacific Ocean at the southern end of the Mariana Trench, in the ocean territory of the Federated States of Micronesia.
The Mariana Trench is an oceanic trench located in the western Pacific Ocean, about 200 kilometres (124 mi) east of the Mariana Islands; it is the deepest oceanic trench on Earth. It is crescent-shaped and measures about 2,550 km (1,580 mi) in length and 69 km (43 mi) in width. The maximum known depth is 10,984 ± 25 metres at the southern end of a small slot-shaped valley in its floor known as the Challenger Deep. The deepest point of the trench is more than 2 km (1.2 mi) farther from sea level than the peak of Mount Everest.
A bathyscaphe is a free-diving, self-propelled deep-sea submersible, consisting of a crew cabin similar to a Bathysphere, but suspended below a float rather than from a surface cable, as in the classic Bathysphere design.
A submersible is an underwater vehicle which needs to be transported and supported by a larger watercraft or platform. This distinguishes submersibles from submarines, which are self-supporting and capable of prolonged independent operation at sea.
Milwaukee Deep, also known as the Milwaukee Depth, is part of the Puerto Rico Trench. Together with the surrounding area, known as Brownson Deep, the Milwaukee Deep forms an elongated depression that constitutes the floor of the trench. As there is no geomorphological distinction between the two, it has been proposed that the use of both names to refer to distinct areas should be reviewed.
A deep-submergence vehicle (DSV) is a deep-diving crewed submersible that is self-propelled. Several navies operate vehicles that can be accurately described as DSVs. DSVs are commonly divided into two types: research DSVs, which are used for exploration and surveying, and DSRVs, which are intended to be used for rescuing the crew of a sunken navy submarine, clandestine (espionage) missions, or both. DSRVs are equipped with docking chambers to allow personnel ingress and egress via a manhole.
The Puerto Rico Trench is located on the boundary between the North Atlantic Ocean and Caribbean Sea, parallel to and north of Puerto Rico, where the oceanic trench reaches the deepest points in the Atlantic Ocean. The trench is associated with a complex transition from the Lesser Antilles frontal subduction zone between the South American Plate and Caribbean Plate to the oblique subduction zone and the strike-slip transform fault zone between the North American Plate and Caribbean Plate, which extends from the Puerto Rico Trench at the Puerto Rico-Virgin Islands Microplate through the Cayman Trough at the Gonâve Microplate to the Middle America Trench at the Cocos Plate.
The Sunda Trench, earlier known as and sometimes still indicated as the Java Trench, is an oceanic trench located in the Indian Ocean near Sumatra, formed where the Australian-Capricorn plates subduct under a part of the Eurasian Plate. It is 3,200 kilometres (2,000 mi) long with a maximum depth of 7,290 metres. Its maximum depth is the deepest point in the Indian Ocean. The trench stretches from the Lesser Sunda Islands past Java, around the southern coast of Sumatra to the Andaman Islands, and forms the boundary between the Indo-Australian Plate and Eurasian Plate. The trench is considered to be part of the alpida Belt as well as one of oceanic trenches around the northern edges of the Australian Plate.
The South Sandwich Trench is a deep arcuate trench in the South Atlantic Ocean lying 100 kilometres (62 mi) to the east of the South Sandwich Islands. It is the deepest trench of the Southern Atlantic Ocean, and the second-deepest of the Atlantic Ocean after the Puerto Rico Trench. Since the trench extends south of the 60th parallel south, it also contains the deepest point in the Southern Ocean.
USNS Indomitable (T-AGOS-7) was a United States Navy Stalwart-class ocean surveillance ship in service from 1985 to 2002. From 2003 until 18 June 2014, she was in commission in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) as the oceanographic research ship NOAAS McArthur II. As of 2018 it serves as a mother ship now named the Deep Submersible Support Vessel (DSSV) Pressure Drop for the crewed deep-ocean research submersible DSV Limiting Factor.
The Molloy Deep is a bathymetric feature in the Fram Strait, within the Greenland Sea east of Greenland and about 160 km (100 mi) west of Svalbard. It is the location of the deepest point in the Arctic Ocean. The Molloy Deep, Molloy Hole, Molloy Fracture Zone, and Molloy Ridge were named after Arthur E. Molloy, a U.S. Navy research scientist who worked in the North Atlantic, North Pacific, and Arctic Oceans in the 1950s–1970s.
The Sirena Deep, originally named the HMRG Deep, was discovered in 1997 by a team of scientists from Hawaii. Its directly measured depth of 10,714 m (35,151 ft) is third only to the Challenger Deep and Horizon Deep, currently the deepest known directly measured places in the ocean. It lies along the Mariana Trench, 200 kilometers to the east of the Challenger Deep and 145 km south of Guam.
Jiaolong is a Chinese crewed deep-sea research submersible that can dive to a depth of over 7,000 metres (23,000 ft), developed from the Sea Pole-class bathyscaphe. It has the second-greatest depth range of any crewed research vehicle of the Chinese Navy; the only crewed expeditions to have gone deeper were the dives of the Trieste bathyscaphe in 1960, Archimède in 1962, Deepsea Challenger in 2012, and DSV Limiting Factor in 2019.
Deepsea Challenger is a 7.3-metre (24 ft) deep-diving submersible designed to reach the bottom of the Challenger Deep, the deepest-known point on Earth. On 26 March 2012, Canadian film director James Cameron piloted the craft to accomplish this goal in the second crewed dive reaching the Challenger Deep. Built in Sydney, Australia, by the research and design company Acheron Project Pty Ltd, Deepsea Challenger includes scientific sampling equipment and high-definition 3-D cameras; it reached the ocean's deepest point after two hours and 36 minutes of descent from the surface.
DeepFlight Challenger is a one-person submersible built with the intention of reaching the Challenger Deep, utilizing DeepFlight technology from Hawkes Ocean Technologies. The submersible is owned by Virgin Oceanic.
MV Odyssey is a 56-meter research and exploration vessel that facilitates a wide range of diving, submersible and aerial operations. The ship has recently been used by OCEEF, under the name Alucia and was previously utilized by initiative OceanX for ocean exploration, research and filming missions. She is now on Charter to the InkFish group and going into refit shortly.
Larry Connor is an American real estate and technology business person, as well as a private astronaut certified by NASA. Connor is the head of the Connor Group, a real estate investment firm located in Dayton, Ohio.
Victor Lance Vescovo is an American private equity investor, retired naval officer, sub-orbital spaceflight participant, and undersea explorer. He was a co-founder and managing partner of private equity company Insight Equity Holdings from 2000-2023. Vescovo achieved the Explorers Grand Slam by reaching the North and South Poles and climbing the Seven Summits. He visited the deepest points of all of Earth's five oceans during the Five Deeps Expedition of 2018–2019.
Limiting Factor, known as Bakunawa since its sale in 2022, is a crewed deep-submergence vehicle (DSV) manufactured by Triton Submarines and owned and operated since 2022 by Gabe Newell’s Inkfish ocean-exploration research organization. It currently holds the records for the deepest crewed dives in all five oceans. Limiting Factor was commissioned by Victor Vescovo for $37 million and operated by his marine research organization, Caladan Oceanic, between 2018-2022. It is commercially certified by DNV for dives to full ocean depth, and is operated by a pilot, with facilities for an observer.
