It's been over a century since the sinking of the RMS Titanic, but experts are still discovering new things about the ship and its doomed voyage all the time. That'll certainly be the case with a new documentary, which explores scientists' efforts to create a 3D map of the ship.
This documentary is the work of Atlantic Productions, which you may know from documentaries like The Wildest Dream, Flying Monsters or The Penguin King, several of which feature David Attenborough.
The Titanic documentary charts the work of the ocean mapping company Magellan as they create a 3D scan of how the Titanic looks nowadays, work which took place in 2022.
The scan consists of 700,000 different images of the ship, and it reveals lots of small and intricate details as well as wider overviews of the ship. Part of the scan of the ship has already been published, and you can find it below.
A new view of the Titanic! New scans reveal the world's most famous wreck as never seen before. They show the wreck in its entirety - it's as if the water has been drained away… Check it out here #Titanic(Footage: @AtlanticProds/ Magellan) pic.twitter.com/1nOdfc7mWbMay 17, 2023
Given the murkiness of the ocean at 3,800 meters, the depth at which the Titanic sits, a scan like this gives a fantastically clear look at the ship, possibly revealing secrets about the ship that would otherwise have been lost to the deep.
Scans like these, then, could help demystify the actual events of April 15, 1912 — and in a non-intrusive way too, with the actual resting place of the Titanic considered a maritime memorial.
Speaking to the BBC, one Titanic specialist called Parks Stephenson said "We really don't understand the character of the collision with the iceberg," listing a few different ways the boat may have hit the fateful ice flow.
The work is just in time too, as in 2010 a study found that a previously-undiscovered metal-eating bacteria called Halomonas titanicae was slowly destroying the wreckage. Lots has changed even since humans first rediscovered the Titanic in 1985. with the stern section eroding particularly quickly.
So when can we watch this new Titanic documentary? Well, that's not something we know just yet, with no release date announced. We don't even know what it's called or where it'll be available to watch, with Atlantic Productions previously having worked with BBC, ITV, Channel 4, PBS, ABC, Nat Geo, Discovery and the History Channel amongst others.
With lots of excitement stemming from these new scans, expect more information about the show soon, and we'll keep you updated when there's concrete information about the show.
