This article is part of DISCOVER's 30th anniversary special section, including
11 eminent scientists'
predictions about the next 30 years. Share your thoughts on the future of science at the Science Not Fiction blog.
It has been 50 years since the
submersible made the only descent of humans into the deepest place in the ocean, the Mariana Trench. In the coming decades, we need to look again into the depths of our own piece of the solar system. We’ve explored only about 5 percent of the ocean. It’s maddening that we know so little about what the seafloor looked like at the site of the Deepwater Horizon spill before the oil began to leak. It’s only a mile underwater! For us to have better maps of the moon, Mars, and Jupiter than our own ocean floor is baffling.
The natural world, especially the ocean, keeps us alive. More than ...
