Context

• Kathy Sullivan, known as the first American woman to walk in space has also become the first woman to reach a Challenger Deep in the Mariana Trench, which is seven miles below the surface of the Pacific Ocean.
• Scientists can be carried to the deep sea by vehicles called human occupied vehicles (HOVs), or, alternatively, unmanned vehicles, called remotely operated vehicles (ROVs)

What is Challenger Deep?

• deepest known point in the Earth’s oceans with a depth of around 10,984m.
• located in the Western Pacific Ocean at the southern end of the Mariana Trench near the Mariana Islands group.

Significance of Deep Ocean Areas:

• reveal new sources for medical drugs, food, energy resources and other products. 
• help to predict earthquakes and tsunamis
• help us understand how we are affecting and getting affected by the Earth’s environment.