Challenger Deep

ocean · extreme places · deep sea

Deepest place on Earth. The Challenger Deep is the lowest point in any ocean, found at the bottom of the Mariana Trench in the western Pacific. It's so deep that if you put Mount Everest (the world's tallest mountain) at the bottom, the peak would still be underwater.

Located in Micronesia. The Challenger Deep sits near Guam in the Federated States of Micronesia. This remote part of the Pacific Ocean is thousands of miles from major cities, making it one of the hardest places on Earth to explore.

Named after a ship. The deep gets its name from the HMS Challenger, a famous research ship that explored the oceans in the 1870s and discovered this incredible place.

Strange creatures live there. Despite being crushed by enormous water pressure and total darkness, weird fish and sea creatures have adapted to survive in these extreme conditions.

Deeper than Mount Everest is tall. The Challenger Deep reaches about 36,000 feet down. Mount Everest is only 29,000 feet tall, so you could fit the entire mountain inside the trench with room to spare.