18 May 2023 , 08:26
1158
0
Titanic may not have struck an iceberg before it famously sank more than 100 years ago, an expert believes, as 3D digital scans reveal a wealth of new information.
Parks Stephenson, who has studied the Titanic for many years, says there is a "growing amount of evidence that Titanic didn’t hit the iceberg along its side, as is shown in all the movies".
He added: “She may actually have grounded on the submerged shelf of the ice.
"That was the first scenario put out by a London magazine in 1912. Maybe we haven’t heard the real story of Titanic yet.”
The first full-size 3D digital scan of the ship's wreckage has been created, using more than 70,000 images from every angle
Haunting new Titanic video shows deterioration and where iceberg first spotted
The ship is still lying 12,500ft beneath the Atlantic Ocean's surface, 400 miles from south of Canada, and now experts will be able to analyse the ship unobscured by water and hopefully find out exactly why the ship hit an iceberg between Southampton, UK and New York, US.
Parks Stephenson said he was "blown away" when he first saw the scans.
The Titanic's stern, which has separated from the bow (Atlantic Productions/Megallan)"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."
He added: "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."
The wreck is continuing to decay, with microbes taking their toll, but Mr Stephenson said the scan would offer an evergreen look into the "questions, basic questions, that need to be answered about the ship".
The bow of the Titanic (Atlantic Productions/Megallan)Since the ship crashed over a century ago, microbes are eating away at it and parts are disintegrating.
Historians fear that time running out to fully understand what happened, so the 3D scan offers fresh hope.
For decades, teams of people set out to find the Titanic but were unsuccessful due to the North Atlantic’s unpredictable weather and the enormous depth at which the ship sunk to.
Kate Winslet recalls 'weird' sex scenes with Leo DiCaprio in front of husband
It took a whopping 73 years for its final resting to be discovered.
Gerhard Seiffert, from the company, who led the plans for the project, told BBC News: "The depth of it, almost 4,000m, represents a challenge, and you have currents at the site, too - and we're not allowed to touch anything so as not to damage the wreck.
Titanic director James Cameron, left, with Parks Stephenson, right (Credit: Parks Stephenson/Pen News)"And the other challenge is that you have to map every square centimetre - even uninteresting parts, like on the debris field you have to map mud, but you need this to fill in between all these interesting objects."
National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence Robert Ballard, along with French scientist Jean-Louis Michel made the historical discovery on September 1, 1985.
The Titanic hit an iceberg at around 23:40 local time and sank two hours and forty minutes later.
But with lifeboats for just 1,178 people on an over 3,000-capacity ship, only 706 passengers and crew survived.
The last living survivor of the Titanic died in 2009 at the age of 97 - he was just two months old at the time of the tragedy.