On January 23, 1960, the Trieste touched down on the sandy soil at the bottom of Challenger Deep, the deepest part of the Mariana trench and deepest point in the world.
At a depth of 35,815 feet (10,916 meters), the Trieste withstood an incredible 1.25 metric tons per square centimeter of pressure, although the single plexiglass window had cracked on the way down, giving American Don Walsh and Frenchman Jacques Piccard a good scare.
Yet the Trieste was not a submarine, but rather a bathyscaphe, specifically designed to withstand the tremendous pressure.
In today's episode of the The Infographics Show, we ask, how deep can submarines go?
It's said we know more about the surface of the moon than we do about the bottom of our own oceans, and the reason why may have a lot to do with how incredibly difficult it is to visit the deepest depths.
As a submarine slips beneath the waves the weight of the water above it presses down on its hull- the deeper you go, the more water above you and the greater the pressure on your submarine.
Bathysphere or bathyscaphes such as the Trieste are able to dive to much deeper depths than a submarine because they are spherical, as opposed to the cylinder design of a submarine.
A sphere is better able to resist pressure because it takes advantage of its arch-like construction, something discovered by the ancient Romans who used arches extensively in their grand architecture.
As force presses down on the arched top half of a bathysphere, the pressure is distributed equally across the entire sphere.
A cylinder on the other hand does take advantage of some of the arch-like characteristics of a bathysphere, but aren't as effective in spreading out the pressure exerted on them as a completely rounded sphere.
