By: Sophia Chen

There has been lots of speculation about how the Titanic sunk for almost a century now, but none of the stories are based on real evidence. However, with a new full-sized scan of the gigantic ship, that is about to change.

Magellan Ltd, a deep-sea mapping company, used submersibles to take over seven hundred thousand pictures of the shipwreck. These scans will help analysts figure out what happened during the night of the collision in 1912. “We really don’t understand the character of the collision with the iceberg. We don’t even know if she hit it along the starboard side, as is shown in all the movies—she might have grounded on the iceberg,” a Titanic historian said.

Getting the scan wasn’t easy. The depth of the wreck is almost 4,000 meters, and the submersibles can’t get too close to it because they couldn’t touch the wreckage for fear they would damage it. They also had to map everything around the boat, including the massive debris field filled with chunks of wood and mud.

The team found many intriguing objects, including metalwork, shoes, and champagne bottles. The scans of the ship itself, such as the twisted tangle of steel that was its stern, can help experts figure out the mechanics of how the ship sank and hit the seafloor. The pictures are also very detailed- you can even see the serial number on the propellers. Parks Stephenson explained, “It allows you to see the wreck as you can never see it from a submersible, and you can see the wreck in its entirety, you can see it in context and perspective. And what it’s showing you now is the true state of the wreck.”

After over 100 years, parts of the ship are being eaten away by microbes and disintegrating, and experts are running out of time to completely understand this tragedy. Thankfully, the scans provide an extremely detailed model of the ruins that will help us find out exactly what happened.