James Cameron to Visit Earth’s Deepest Point    [06-04-2012] James Cameron is one of the most famous and respected directors in Hollywood. Two of his films - Titanic and Avatar - were hugely successful. The filmmaker is also widely known as a scientist and an expert on deep-sea exploration. Last week, he became the first solo diver to visit Earth’s deepest point - 11 kilometers below the ocean’s surface. The Mariana Trench is located about 321 kilometers southwest of Guam. It is about 2,550 kilometers long and 69 kilometers wide. This means that the trench is 120 times larger than the Grand Canyon in the U.S., and more than 1.6 kilometers deeper than Mount Everest is tall. The understood, deepest point on Earth is known as the Challenger Deep, which has a depth of 10,898 to 10,916 meters. It is located at the southern end of the Mariana Trench. Mr. Cameron, who hopes to become the first person to explore the bottom of the Mariana Trench, began his journey on March 26. He used a specially designed submarine called the Deepsea Challenger. It was equipped with a sampling arm, video camera, and other research tools. When Mr. Cameron reached the bottom, he sent out a Tweet reading, “Just arrived at the ocean’s deepest point. Can’t wait to share what I’m seeing with you.” He spent about three hours of his seven-hour journey on the seafloor. Many deep-sea scientists excitedly expressed hope that Mr. Cameron’s technology would allow them to collect samples and conduct experiments in the deepest depths of the sea, a place that until now has been unreachable for humans. “This is a technological breakthrough and a huge accomplishment on Cameron’s part, and I’m very pleased that he’s done it,” said scientist Bruce Robison. “Let’s hope it opens the door for more.” Much of the ocean’s deepest points are unreachable by state-owned submarines, which can dive no more than 6,500 meters and only done so by Japan’s Shinkai 6500. Both the U.S. and China are renovating their deepest-diving crafts to be able to reach 6,400 and 7,000 meters, respectively. Many scientists called Mr. Cameron’s dive a “scientific milestone.” They praised the director’s submarine as a completely revolutionary design. They also credited him for attracting public interest in the deep ocean. “One of the problems we have as scientists is reaching the public, and he’s smashed through that barrier like no scientist could,” said geoscientist Robert Stern. “I wonder if a lot of young people are watching this, and if now there will be a whole bunch of kids who want to be engineers and deep-sea scientists. It’s one of those moments that captures the imagination.”     출처: 어린이 영자신문 키즈타임즈 (www.kidstimes.net)