The Titanic as it’s never been seen: Full-size high-resolution images of the wreckage were made public on Wednesday and they could help scientists determine more precisely the conditions under which the famous ocean liner sank in April 1912.
These unpublished images, revealed by the BBC, are impressive for their sharpness and the details that we see there: the serial number on a propeller, the radio room, the bridge etc. This life-size digital scan gives the impression that the wreckage, in 3D, has been lifted from the murky depths of the ocean.
The footage was taken over the summer of 2022 by Magellan Ltd, a seabed mapping company, and Atlantic Productions, who are making a documentary about the project.
Submersibles, remotely operated by a team aboard a specialist vessel, spent more than 200 hours surveying the wreckage along its full length and width. More than 700,000 images were taken, from all angles, to recreate the whole thing in 3D.
“The depth (at which the Titanic is located, ie 4,000 meters, editor’s note) represents a challenge. As well as the currents on the site”, explained Gerhard Seiffert, of Magellan Ltd, to the BBC. “And we are not allowed to touch anything so as not to damage the wreckage”.
“You have to map every square centimeter, even uninteresting parts (…) in order to fill in the spaces between all the interesting objects,” he added.
Leaving Southampton on April 10, 1912 to reach New York, the gigantic liner, the largest in the world at the time of its launch, was shipwrecked after hitting an iceberg five days later. Of the 2,224 passengers and crew, nearly 1,500 perished.
The wreck was discovered in 1985 650 kilometers off the Canadian coast, at a depth of 4,000 meters in the international waters of the Atlantic Ocean. Since then, it has been beset by treasure seekers and tourists.
Parks Stephenson, who presents himself as a historian and engineer and who has studied the Titanic for years, said he was “blown away” by these new images.
“We now have the ability to see the Titanic without human interpretation, but directly from the evidence and the data, which is what we really need to piece together what I would call this crime scene,” he said on the BBC.
“We don’t really understand the circumstances of the collision with the iceberg yet. We don’t even know if he hit it on the starboard side, as we see in the movies,” continued this Titanic enthusiast.