Technology helps experts find Titanic wreckage

The famous Titanic wreck was discovered by accident during a secret mission by the US military to survey two sunken nuclear submarines.

Titanic wreck found using sonar technology. Photo: News.com.au.

Known as the unsinkable ship, the RMS Titanic hit an iceberg in April 1912 and disappeared beneath the frigid waters of the North Atlantic, according to National Geographic. The wreck was discovered in 1985 after being submerged for decades. In fact, the discovery of the Titanic’s location was the result of a Cold War military expedition.

According to Robert Ballard, the oceanographer credited with finding the Titanic, he met with the Navy in 1982 to ask for funding to develop robotic diving technology to search for the sunken ship. Navy leaders expressed interest in the technology because they wanted to examine the wrecks of two sunken nuclear submarines, the USS Thresher and the USS Scorpion. They also lie at the bottom of the North Atlantic, and the US military wanted to know the fate of the nuclear reactors that powered the ships. The task was to determine the environmental safety of dumping more nuclear material into the ocean.

At that time, the naval commander said that after the Thresher and Scorpion missions were completed, if there was any time left, Ballard could use the sonar technology at will. Finally, with only 12 days left, Ballard was determined to apply the new technology to search for the Titanic and finally achieved a breakthrough discovery by persistently following the dust trail behind the famous ship.

"The Navy didn't expect me to find the Titanic, so when it happened, they were really concerned about the publicity. But people were so interested in the Titanic legend that they never noticed what was involved," Ballard said.

Many search teams have attempted to locate the ship but have returned empty-handed. The ship lay untouched on the ocean floor for more than seven decades until Ballard and his international colleagues discovered the wreckage using sonar technology and underwater robots.

Sonar technology is a technique that relies on the propagation of sound to detect objects on the surface of the water, in the water, or at the bottom of the water. Researchers often use side scan sonar to detect submerged objects at sea or bathymetry to map the topography of the sea and determine the conditions at the bottom of the water.

According to VNE