• Question: Why do we know more about what's in space than what's at the bottom of the ocean?

    Asked by amyhoughton to Andrew, Daniel, Hayley, Peta on 24 Nov 2011.
    • Photo: Daniel Scully

      Daniel Scully answered on 23 Nov 2011:

      I’m not sure which we know more about, but it’s true that there is a lot we don’t know about the bottom of the oceans.

      The main reason for this is that is it’s incredibly difficult to get there.

      First there’s the extreme pressure – at the deepest part of the ocean there’s about 11km of water above you. Building a submarine to withstand this is incredibly difficult. You certainly couldn’t go out in a diving suit!

      Then there’s the lack of light. After 11km of water there’s really no sunlight left – so seeing what’s down there is very difficult. You need to bring your own lights and you won’t be able to see far.

      Finally, there’s the sheer size of the oceans. There’s more ocean on Earth than there is land, so any visit you do make to the bottom is only viewing a tiny fraction of what’s there to discover.

      Only one submarine has ever reached the bottom of deepest part of the Ocean (the Mariana Trench). It took nearly 5 hours to get down there (one of the windows cracked – scary!), they spent 20 minutes at the bottom, then spent over 3 hours climbing back to the surface.

      For all these reasons our knowledge of what’s at the bottom of the oceans is very limited.

    • Photo: Hayley Smith

      Hayley Smith answered on 23 Nov 2011:

      I’d agree with Daniel – I’m not sure whether the human race knows more about the oceans or space (it’s probably changed a lot over time) and I agree with his points too, I think the pressure, light and all in all extreme environment make it very difficult to understand what’s happening on the ocean bed.
      (I’m not saying that space exploration is easy – but maybe technology has led us that route, especially since the commercialisation of flight?)

      However, I would suggest that maybe people are more inclined to wonder about space? Since humans all over the world can see up into the night sky (and it looks pretty cool right?), this can be done simply with unaided vision, or with the aid of telescopes – these were invented quite early on, so people have always “had access” to the night sky, and this maybe wasn’t true about the oceans. Some people may have never seen oceans, and if you have never seen, can you really wonder about it? I don’t know, that’s getting a bit philosophical, but that would be another additional explanation I’d make…!

    • Photo: Peta Foster

      Peta Foster answered on 24 Nov 2011:

      It’s very difficult to get to the bottom of the ocean and even see there. We also don’t know that much about the centre of the earth. Luckily space is nice and clear so we can see out to what is there. 🙂

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