Temporarily offlineNautilus Deep-Sea ROV
A robot submarine thousands of metres down on a live webcam, with the scientists narrating the dive.
Moving camera: its position on the map is approximate.
About this view
This is the view from Hercules, the remotely operated vehicle flown from the exploration vessel Nautilus, a robot submarine on a tether, lighting up seafloor that in many cases no one has ever seen. The ship belongs to the Ocean Exploration Trust, founded by Robert Ballard, who located the wreck of the Titanic in 1985.
What comes past the lens is genuinely unpredictable: octopus and sixgill sharks, hydrothermal vents, corals centuries old, and the sediment plumes the thrusters kick up. Best of all is the audio: the scientists talk through what they are seeing as they see it, and are perfectly willing to say they have no idea what something is.
Dives run through the expedition season, roughly June to October, and the ship moves to a different stretch of seafloor each year, so no two seasons look alike. Between dives the live webcam waits on deck, which means the ship's schedule decides whether you arrive mid-dive or mid-transit.
