Hollywood film director James Cameron has returned to the ocean surface after traveling to the deepest spot on Earth.
The director of Titanic and other films used a specially designed submarine called Deepsea Challenger Sunday to dive nearly 11 kilometers to reach the bottom of the Mariana Trench.
Cameron spent hours on the Pacific Ocean sea floor, collecting samples for scientific research and taking video and still photographs.
He sent a message from the site, located about 350 kilometers southwest of the Pacific island of Guam, saying "hitting bottom never felt so good" and that he was eager to share what he saw.
Cameron is the first person to make the trip solo. Swiss engineer Jacques Piccard and Don Walsh, a U.S. Navy captain, took a dive to the same spot in 1960. They spent about 20 minutes there but could not see much after their sub kicked up sand from the sea floor.
The Mariana Trench is 120 times larger than the Grand Canyon and more than 1.6 kilometers deeper than Mount Everest is tall.
Some information for this report provided by AP, AFP and Reuters.
