China sends vessel “Fendouzhe”, or “Striver”, into earth’s deepest ocean trench. The vessel descended more than 10,000 meters (about 33,000 feet) into the Pacific Ocean’s Mariana Trench with three researchers on board.
After multiple dives, the vessel was finally able to land on the deepest known point of the trench. This point is known as the Challenger Deep.
Earlier this month, Fendouzhe set a national record of 10,909 meters for manned deep-sea diving. But it missed out on beating the world record for the deepest dive by an American explorer in 2019.
Video footage
China live-streamed footage of its new manned submersible parked at the bottom of Marina Trench. So the world witnessed the first live video from Challenger deep for the first time.
Video footage shot and relayed by deep-sea camera showed the green-and-white Chinese submersible moving through dark waters. The video showed the submersible surrounded by clouds of sediments as it gradually touches down the seabed.
Deep-sea resources
Fendouzhe is observing “the many species and the distribution of living things on the seabed” It has sonar “eyes” for classifying the different objects and robotic arms for collecting biological samples.
