3D Scan of the Titanic Reveals More Details of the Ship’s Final Hours

Magellan, a company that uses cutting-edge 3D mapping technology to create digital maps of the deep sea, sent two autonomous submersible vehicles named Romeo and Juliet 12,500 feet down to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean to snap 715,000 pictures of the Titanic.

The company then stitched those hundreds of thousands of pictures together to create a hyper-real, extraordinarily detailed 3D rendering of the famous ship that met its infamous end in 1912.

The wreck’s digital resurrection will be featured in an upcoming National Geographic documentary titled Titanic: The Digital Resurrection, though you can see some footage of it below.

Incredible 3D Scan Of The Titanic Reveals More Harrowing Details Of Its Demise

The footage is haunting, giving the over-century-old ill-fated ship an eerie look reminiscent of an ancient Lovecraftian entity slumbering deep beneath the sea.

The scans have done a lot more than just give us a better view of the ship. It helped researchers answer questions that had been long-held about the ship’s voyage and its demise.

As the Titanic plunged into the frigid Atlantic, a group of engineers in the boiler rooms work to keep the power on to keep the lights running. All of this, summed up by an open steam valve found in the wreckage, ensured that lifeboats could be launched with at least a little bit of light rather than complete darkness. Their sacrifice was rumored among survivors but now they’ll get the credit they deserve.

The 3D model is one of the largest and most detailed underwater scans ever, clocking in at a massive 16 terabytes of data. The further the scans dug into the ship, the more horrifying details emerged. Portholes are torn apart, metal twisted and contorted, and ship passengers’ items lying bare on the ocean floor.

It may take several more years of research to finally get a complete picture of what exactly transpired that night in 1912, but the Magellan 3D replica of the Titanic’s final resting place will bring us one big step closer to piecing it all together.