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The high-resolution images reconstruct the wreck that lies at a depth of nearly 4,000 metres in great detail. Atlantic Productions

Titanic shipwreck captured in first full-sized 3D scan

The images show the wreck as if it were lifted from the water and reveals the smallest details, like the serial number on one of the propellers.

THE FIRST FULL-SIZED 3D scan of the Titanic shipwreck may reveal more details about the ocean liner’s fateful journey across the Atlantic more than a century ago.

The high-resolution images, published by the BBC today, reconstruct the wreck that lies at a depth of nearly 4,000 metres in great detail and were created using deep-sea mapping.

The reconstruction was carried out in 2022 by deep-sea mapping company Magellan Ltd and Atlantic Productions, who are making a documentary about the project.

Submersibles remotely controlled from a specialist ship spent over 200 hours surveying the wreck at the bottom of the Atlantic, taking over 700,000 images to create the scan.

Magellan’s Gerhard Seiffert, who led the planning for the expedition, told the BBC they were not allowed to touch anything “so as not to damage the wreck”.

“The other challenge is that you have to map every square centimetre – even uninteresting parts, like on the debris field you have to map mud, but you need this to fill in between all these interesting objects,” Seiffert said.

BBC News / YouTube

The images show the wreck as if it were lifted from the water, revealing even the smallest details, like the serial number on one of the propellers.

The new scans may shed more light on what exactly happened to the liner with historians and scientists racing against time as the ships is disintegrating.

“Now we are finally getting to see Titanic without human interpretation, derived directly from evidence and data,” Parks Stephenson, who has studied the Titanic for many years, told the BBC.

Stephenson said there is “still much to learn” from the wreck, which is “essentially the last surviving eyewitness to the disaster”.

“And she has stories to tell,” he added.

The luxury passenger liner sank after colliding with an iceberg on its maiden voyage from Southampton, England, to New York in April 1912, leaving more than 1,500 dead.

The shipwreck has been explored extensively since it was first discovered in 1985 around 650 kilometres off the coast of Canada, but cameras were never able to capture the ship in its entirety.

© AFP 2023

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    Mute Real Chief Police Trump MAGA 2024
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    May 17th 2023, 3:39 PM

    Did it sink? Did man land on the moon? not saying either/or but the debates need to be had

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    Mute sean o'dhubhghaill
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    May 17th 2023, 3:51 PM

    @Real Chief Police Trump MAGA 2024: It’s all a scam.

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    Mute Gerard Hayden
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    May 17th 2023, 3:57 PM

    @Real Chief Police Trump MAGA 2024: Is your argument watertight?

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    Mute SPQH
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    May 17th 2023, 4:24 PM

    @Real Chief Police Trump MAGA 2024: it’s safely docked in Atlantis.

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    Mute Joey Roche
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    May 17th 2023, 7:20 PM

    @Gerard Hayden: they’re just trying to break the ice

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    Mute Anna Carr
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    May 17th 2023, 6:43 PM

    This actually gets to me. Leave it alone. Let the souls rest.

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    Mute Colm O'Leary
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    May 17th 2023, 8:43 PM

    @Anna Carr: the souls are long gone along with the bodies.,

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    Mute Gavin Conran
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    May 17th 2023, 11:27 PM

    @Anna Carr: Do souls just rest for eternity at the location where the person died? Jesus that sounds depressing.

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    Mute Anna Carr
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    May 17th 2023, 11:59 PM

    @Colm O’Leary: the sea doesn’t give up its dead if it doesn’t want to. Leave the dead to rest. Stop poking about where you don’t belong.

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    Mute Anna Carr
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    May 18th 2023, 12:00 AM

    @Gavin Conran: that’s not what I meant. The seas hold their mysteries. Leave them be.

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    Mute Colm O'Leary
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    May 17th 2023, 8:46 PM

    I wonder if it could be linked up to a 3d headset so that you could walk through the ship?

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    Mute Gavin Conran
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    May 17th 2023, 11:28 PM

    @Colm O’Leary: No doubt we will see something along those lines in a few years .

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    Mute Pato
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    May 17th 2023, 4:32 PM

    Oh no. I have that sinking feeling…

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    Mute Mark Murphy
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    May 17th 2023, 8:25 PM

    I know one thing city going sink Madrid to tonight beautiful football spurs fan just saying can’t deny, god bless the world

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