The impressive images of the 3D “scan” made to the Titanic: they photograph shoes, propellers and even bottles of champagne to the most famous shipwreck in history

An impressive 3-dimensional (3D) life-size “scan” of the sunken remains of the Titanic leaves thousands of people around the world shocked.

The 3D reconstruction was created by researchers at Magellan Ltd, in conjunction with Atlantic Productions and, says National Geographic, allows us to see the most famous shipwreck in history.

These images could help solve the mystery surrounding the Titanic, the luxurious ocean liner that sank when it collided with an iceberg in April 1912 on its maiden voyage from the English city of Southampton to New York, the AFP agency recalls.

Titanic: 4 curiosities about the famous ship 110 years after its shipwreck

What did they do with the Titanic?

The underwater intervention and seabed mapping company Magellan Ltd, together with Atlantic Productions, has carried out the reconstruction, presented on Wednesday, May 17, 2023, “which shows in detail what the ship was like and how it could have been hit by the iceberg that caused the collapse,” explains National Geographic.

Atlantic Productions is reporting on its networks that it is pleased to be the media partner in Magellan’s innovative project to scan the Titanic and create a digital twin.

Experts “will now be able to launch an investigation into exactly what happened the night the Titanic sank.”

“The most famous shipwreck in the world as you’ve never seen it before,” celebrates the Atlantic Productions company on its networks.

According to the French agency, the unpublished high-resolution images published by the BBC were created using deep-sea charts.

Several remote-controlled submersibles from a specialized ship spent more than 200 hours inspecting the wreckage of the “Titanic” at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, taking more than 700,000 photos to create the scanner.

They were not allowed to touch anything “so as not to damage the remains,” Gerhard Seiffert, head of Magellan Ltd, which led the expedition, told the BBC.

“The other challenge was that you had to map every square centimeter, even the uninteresting parts like the mud in the rubble, which is necessary to fill the space between interesting objects,” he told the media.

What revealing data did they find?

Since the discovery of the remains of the sunken ocean liner – some 650 kilometers off the coast of Canada – in 1985, this 3D scan represents another important milestone in history.

The images show the ship, with the stern and bow separated and surrounded by debris, as if it had been lifted from the seabed, revealing even the smallest details, such as the serial number of one of the propellers, AFP says.

For the Daily Mail, the released images are “disturbing”. Some show unopened champagne bottles lying at the bottom of the North Atlantic among the wreckage of the Titanic.

The images also show a pair of shoes. Another features “the barely recognizable remains of the luxury liner’s grand staircase, where fictional soul mates Jack and Rose first met,” in the famous 1990s film.

Other items on board the large and iconic ship included 2,500 champagne glasses, 45,000 napkins and 50,000 towels, the British media quoted.

The personal items that have not yet disintegrated, found among the remains, may provide clues to the life the ship harbored for 8 days

National Geographic

The publication states that the researchers are convinced that the collision with the iceberg did not take place on the starboard side, the tragic night of more than 100 years ago.

what’s coming

The new scanners, AFP reported, could shed more light on exactly what happened to the liner, at a time when historians and scientists are working against the clock in the face of the remains’ continued disintegration.

“Now we finally get to see the ‘Titanic’ without human interpretation, directly from evidence and data,” Parks Stephenson, a historian and engineer who spent many years studying the most famous shipwreck in history, told the BBC.

“There’s still a lot to learn” from the wreck. “And he has stories to tell.”