Reportedly, it is revealed that one of the world’s most capable deep-sea research subs has been missing after an extensive search operation was conducted. The robotic vehicle Nereus went missing while
exploring one of the ocean’s deepest spots: the Kermadec Trench, which lies north east of New Zealand.
Nereus was a flagship ocean explorer for the US science community. The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution says a portion of the Hybrid Remotely Operated Vehicle Nereus likely suffered a “catastrophic implosion” during its dive to the Kermadec Trench on Friday “under pressure as great as 16,000 pounds per square inch.”
The $8m (£4.7m) robot was built in 2008 and could operate in an autonomous mode or remotely controlled via a tether to a support ship to explore the Earth’s deepest oceanic trenches. It used a lot of innovative technologies that allowed it to do things and go places that were off-limits to other research submersibles.
These technologies included rechargeable lithium-ion batteries, similar to those used in laptop computers, for extended power, and single-hair’s-width fibre-optic cables – borrowed from torpedoes – for control and telemetry.
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