‘Game-changer': 3D scan of Titanic wreck offers haunting, detailed view of liner

The first 3D digital scan of the Titanic shipwreck offers a never-before-seen detailed view of the ill-fated ocean liner in its entirety.

The unprecedented replica shows a complete image of the world's most famous decaying ship, which lies in two parts at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, around 350 miles off the coast of Newfoundland, Canada.

The reconstructive scan was carried out in 2022 by deep-sea mapping specialist Magellan Ltd., which deployed two submersibles to the Titanic's final resting place about 2.4 miles into the ocean, according to Magellan. Atlantic Productions chronicled the expedition as part of a documentary it filmed. Both companies called the endeavor "the largest underwater scanning project in history."

Since the wreck was discovered in 1985, the remains of the Titanic have been filmed and photographed many times, but the shipwreck has never been captured as a whole due to its immense size (the ship was 883 feet long) and the fact that the bow and stern are separated by some 2,600 feet.

RMS Titanic departing Southampton, England, on April 10, 1912. (Photo by: Pictures from History/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

The two submersibles spent 200 hours snapping more than 700,000 images from every angle and mapping every inch of the shipwreck before they were all pieced together to produce the replica, according to Magellan and the BBC, which was first to report the news Wednesday.

The 3D scan is so detailed that even the serial number on a propeller is visible.

The vessel, once billed as "unsinkable," was on its maiden voyage from Southampton, England, to New York when it sank into the Atlantic on April 14, 1912, after hitting an iceberg. More than 1,500 people died that fateful night out of the 2,224 passengers and crew who were aboard.

Researchers hope that this 3D digital replica of the Titanic can help unravel the mystery behind the sinking of such a massive ship.

"I have been studying Titanic for 20 years, but this is a true game-changer," Titanic expert Parks Stephenson, who has studied the ship over the past several decades, said in a statement about the new images.

"What we are seeing for the first time is an accurate and true depiction of the entire wreck and debris site. I'm seeing details that none of us have ever seen before and this allows me to build upon everything that we have learned to date and see the wreck in a new light," Stephenson said.

In February 2023, rare video footage was released from the 1985 discovery of the ghostly shipwreck. The more than hour-long recording was made public for the first time by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts, which discovered the location of the doomed ship at the time and sent a three-person team in a submersible vessel to film the wreckage the following summer.

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