WEBVTT
Kind: captions
Language: en

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The Royal Mail Ship Titanic was thought to
be unsinkable.

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But on April 14, 1912, during her
maiden voyage, Titanic struck an iceberg in

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the North Atlantic.

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On that fateful day, the world lost
the largest and most advanced passenger steamship

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of her time.

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Marine explorer Dr. Robert Ballard first located
the wreckage in 1985.

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Nearly 20 years later, he
returned with a team of researchers to map

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the wreckage and conduct scientific analysis
of its deterioration.

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Remotely operated vehicles were used to conduct a "look, don't touch" mission,

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which is extremely important in respecting
and protecting this memorial.

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Fitted with high definition cameras, the ROVs
were able to stay in one spot long enough

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to reveal
subtle features never seen before.

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Here we see Captain Smith's cabin.

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The side of the cabin has
deteriorated and fallen away, and we plainly

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see the bathtub, pipes, and faucets.

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This large hole
is at the base of the ship's forward smokestack,

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which was ripped off when the ship sank to the bottom.

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The ship wreckage is now covered with what look like rusty icicles, called rusticles.

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These formations are actually communities of bacteria

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that slowly eat away at the ship's iron
and give

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the shipwreck its melting appearance.

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A comparison of rusticle growth over time
helps scientists

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to better understand Titanic's degradation, as well as that of other metal shipwrecks.

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The story of Titanic's sinking and her
ill-fated passengers have been

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famously told in films and books.

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But Titanic lives on at the bottom of the
ocean as a maritime memorial and as a scientific  laboratory.