Titanic digital scan reveals new details of ship's final hours

Summary

Titanic scan reveals ground-breaking details of ship's final hoursAlison FrancisSenior Science JournalistAtlantic Productions/MagellanThe digital scan shows the bow sitting upright on the sea floor A detailed analysis of a full-sized digital scan of the Titanic has revealed new insight into the doomed liner's final hours.The exact 3D replica shows the violence of how the ship ripped in two as it sank after hitting an iceberg in 1912 - 1,500 people lost their lives in the disaster.The scan provides a new view of a boiler room, confirming eye-witness accounts that engineers worked right to the end to keep the ship's lights on.And a computer simulation also suggests that punctures in the hull the size of A4 pieces of paper led to the ship's demise.Atlantic Productions/MagellanThe stern of the ship, which broke off from the bow, is heavily damaged"Titanic is the last surviving eyewitness to the disaster, and she still has stories to tell," said Parks Stephenson, a Titanic analyst.The scan has been studied for a new documentary by National Geographic and Atlantic Productions called Titanic: The Digital Resurrection.The wreck, which lies 3,800m down in the icy waters of the Atlantic, was mapped using underwater robots.More than 700,000 images, taken from every angle, were used to create the "digital twin", which was revealed exclusively to the world by BBC News in 2023. Because the wreck is so large and lies in the gloom of the deep, exploring it with submersibles only shows tantalising snapshots. The scan, however, provides the first full view of the Titanic.The immense bow lies upright on the seafloor, almost as if the ship were continuing its voyage.But sitting 600m away, the stern is a heap of mangled metal. The damage was caused as it slammed into the sea floor after the ship broke in half.Atlantic Productions/MagellanThe glass in a porthole may have been broken as it scraped past the icebergThe new mapping technology is providing a different way to study the ship."I...