Bathybot, the robot that will dive into the abyss to study the deep seabed

This underwater robot will dive to a depth of 2,400 m for several years, to explore the deep sea and observe the effects of global warming. What he is going to film at the bottom of the sea is quite unique: if you go well beyond 2,400 m thanks to machines and submarines, you don’t stay there, as Christian Tamburini explains, CNRS researcher at the Mediterranean Institute of Oceanography: “The knowledge that we have by using oceanographic vessels is that linked to a specific point, to a season.”

“Here, the idea is to try to study over the medium and long term and therefore to see seasonal variability, possibly also to see exceptional phenomena that we don’t know or that we don’t know well.”

Christian Tamburini, CNRS researcher

at franceinfo

However, Bathybot does not look like much. It is a small jig of a little less than 300 kilos, yellow in color, mounted on tracks. It will advance in an opaque world, on an abyssal plain and will be connected to an underwater laboratory, already installed on the dive site. It will remain at least two years before a first ascent, hence the use, in this world of the depths, of resistant materials, details Jan Opderbecke, head of the unit at IFREMER which manages underwater vehicles: “We work with materials that are the least susceptible to corrosion. So titanium, with resins to hold in the depths.”

During its mission, the little robot will allow scientists to progress in their knowledge of the deep sea and global warming. Christian Tamburini hopes that he will be able to bring new elements to a phenomenon observed in these deep seas: bioluminescence, that is to say natural underwater light. “What are the bioluminescent organisms at the bottom of the Mediterranean? We have very, very little information. We hope to have images that will allow us to better identify them.”

“We will be able to say if it is rather a fish or a jellyfish, and possibly go into a little more detail.”

Christian Tamburini

at franceinfo

It is customary to say that today, we know the Moon better than these deep seabeds: Bathybot’s mission is partly to prove this formula wrong.