Source: The Guardian
Author: Jon Letman
It is a place that has been visited by fewer people than have flown to the moon – pitch black, 11km down, the last frontier.
Last month, Nicole Yamase became the first Pacific Islander, the third woman, and, at 29, the second-youngest person to visit Challenger Deep, the deepest known part of the Mariana Trench.
The roughly 50km-long, 6km-wide Challenger Deep lies within the territorial waters of Federated States of Micronesia (FSM) and FSM president David Panuelo said it was “fitting that a Micronesian has finally seen the bottom of the Challenger Deep”, adding that Yamase’s work was “awe-inspiring in its importance and breathtaking in its beauty”.
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