Bathysphere

What is a bathysphere?

“Bathos” is Greek for “deep”. A bathysphere means a “sphere of the deep”. The first bathysphere was built by an American, William Beebe, and made its first descent into the unknown ocean darkness in 1930. It reached a depth of about 1,300 feet.

Beebe’s bathysphere was held by a cable. Free descents were first made by Auguste Picard in  a bathyscaphe. “Scaphos” means “ship” in Greek.

Now special submarines, able to cruise at great depth, are used for specific oceanographic tasks in many parts of the world.