CHALLENGER DEEP, PACIFIC OCEAN — The Chinese government live-streamed footage of its new manned submersible as it reached the bottom of the Mariana Trench on Friday. <br /><br />The "Fendouzhe", meaning "Striver", submersible descended more than 10 kilometers into the submarine trench in the western Pacific Ocean with three researchers on board, state broadcaster CCTV said. <br /><br />Only a handful of people have ever visited the bottom of the Mariana Trench, a 2,550 kilometer-long depression in the Earth's crust that is deeper than Mount Everest is high. <br /><br />The first explorers visited the trench in 1960 on a brief expedition, after which there had been no missions until movie director James Cameron made the first solo trip to the bottom in 2012. <br /><br />Cameron described a "desolate" and "alien" environment. <br /><br />Fendouzhe, had earlier this month set a Chinese record of 10,909 meters for manned deep-sea diving after landing in the deepest known point of the trench, Challenger Deep, just shy of the 10,927-meter world record set by an American explorer in 2019.
