Kathy Sullivan, a former NASA astronaut has become the first person in the world to have visited Challenger Deep, the deepest point on earth as well as the space. This is a feat that has been achieved by no one so far.
On Sunday, she ventured into the Challenger Deep, which is at a depth of 35,853 feet in the Western Pacific Ocean, as part of the Ring of Fire expedition by the bespoke adventure company EYOS. They had called three ‘mission specialists’ months prior to the expedition to venture into the Mariana Trench, where the Challenger Deep lies. Leading up to the dives, the three explorers underwent full briefs on the mission, schedule and research initiatives.
Sullivan is the first of three explorers to finish the roughly 10-hour mission, with two more to follow this week. While talking about it, she said, “I know (Challenger Deep) as a bathymetric feature on a chart, a tectonic feature, and a seismic feature … but that’s all data-based understanding. To see it in person — it makes all the difference in the world.”
Much like outer space and distant galaxies, the ocean is still relatively unknown to humans — like the last frontier.