The view of the entire sunken Titanic is revealed for the first time in newly published photos. The pictures, unveiled in the April edition of National Geographic 100 years after the great ship sank, show the mammoth vessel still and broken, but recognizable with several portholes, decks, and railings intact. The photos are the result of a several-million-dollar expedition by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, which used state-of-the-art robotic vehicles to sweep the area surrounding the wreckage, snapping more than 100,000 high-resolution photos.
The project is a “game-changer,” for the first time giving wide-screen, complete views of the famous ship, according to National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration archeologist James Delgado. “In the past, trying to understand the Titanic was like trying to understand Manhattan at midnight in a rainstorm—with a flashlight," he tells the magazine. “Now we have a site that can be understood and measured. This historic map may give voice to those people who were silenced, seemingly forever, when the cold water closed over them.” See the stunning shots. (More National Geographic stories.)