back to article Brit robo-sub dives to 3.5 miles on seabed volcano quest

British oceanography boffins are celebrating successful trials of their latest robot submarine, which has now autonomously navigated itself about at a depth of three-and-a-half miles beneath the surface of the Atlantic. The Autosub 6000 in action. Credit: NOC The British battery-powered bottom probe at work. The Reg has …

COMMENTS

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  1. Alex Walsh

    How many leagues?

    A league is 3 nautical miles, so rather than 20,000 or 200 leagues its probably more like 1 to the nearest whole number.

  2. Christoph
    Alien

    "battery-powered bottom probe"

    The giant squid it passed on the way down will never be believed when he tells his friends there was this alien craft probing his bottom.

  3. Tim 77
    Joke

    Register headline opportunity missed

    "Brit Robo-Sub hailed a success by McPhail"

  4. Paul Young

    6k depth is nothing

    Woods Hole OI do better

    6.5K depth

    http://www.whoi.edu/page.do?pid=10755

    anon incase they remember be on the Knorr last year

  5. Fred 3
    Joke

    Titles are useless

    The British battery-powered bottom probe at work...

    The British battery-powered bottom probe? Oh aye!!!!!

  6. Graham Bartlett
    Boffin

    Colour scheme

    Why does that godawful Beatles song have such an influence on what colour every civilian sub is painted? Every last one seems to be painted yellow.

    Yes, those are goggles not glasses...

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    3.5m != 200 leagues under the sea

    3.5 miles is one league, near enough.

    By your estimate, a league would be 31 yards. I doubt Good King Wenceslas would have sympathised with that.

    Okay okay, you're talking about horizontal range. I always thought Jules Verne's measurement was vertical, but now I think about it, that's implausible.

  8. Pirate of the Carib
    Pirate

    Volcanoes?

    > search for underwater volcanoes.

    Arrr, they should use it to look for sunken pirate treasure!

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "The British battery-powered bottom probe at work."

    I'm glad the picture was nothing like the one that caption conjured up in my mind.

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Joke

    Well there ain't no .... (ain't no!)

    Well there ain't no .... (ain't no!) battery bottom probe getting near my bum m8y!

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Paris Hilton

    Global Warming

    This stuff is expensive....so the research funding proposal looked something like

    "....this research will result in a better understanding of global warming and global climate change...and the best place to do this is on our own private ship in the Carribean for 6 months with a crew of sex starved, drink fuelled students..."

    Time to get out of IT I think...

    ...that remdinds me...shouldn't the Paris icon be used when we're talking about battery powered probes or are the El Reg commentards a bit lacking this morning...

  12. Liam Johnson

    20,000 leagues

    The distance refered to was not straight down but round and round. Even in 1870, Jules Verne would have known that you would have gone right through the bottom and out the other side. That was covered in another book by the same author.

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Coat

    @Graham Bartlett

    Objects are painted yellow for visibility not because of the Beatles.

    the "fab" 4 didn't do a tune about yellow flying machines but a lot of British research aircraft had large amounts of yellow paint.

  14. Bassey

    Re: Colour scheme

    It has nothing to do with the Beatles. You make subs yellow because they are easier to find when they break down. Unless, of course, it's a military sub, in which case you make it as difficult to spot as possible.

    There is bugger-all point painting them blue or coral coloured. That's like all those dip-shits who go out walking in the hills wearing green and brown, have an accident, and then wonder why nobody can find them. It's because you went out wearing camouflage you morons!

  15. Anonymous Coward
    Jobs Horns

    British battery-powered bottom probe?

    The USA will want that then.

    Then, for a change, they can find their own WMD.

  16. JasGarnier

    Longer life batteries...

    The Norwegians have already created a deep water sub, funded by Statoil, that had extremely long-life aluminium-oxygen batteries. The oxygen was produced in-situ from hydrogen peroxide. It seems to me that battery type would be much better for this job.

  17. Winkypop Silver badge
    Pirate

    What did it find?

    3 x shopping trolleys

    1 x 2cv

    Various beer cans!

  18. Anonymous Coward
    Happy

    Battery powered bottom probe?

    The boffins must be so proud at their coverage... Good work!

  19. Anonymous Coward
    Boffin

    Leagues is not used to measure depth!

    @Alex Walsh @TooMuchCoffee

    20,000 leagues is how far Nemo and co. travelled, not the depth at which they sailed. Duh!!!

    Anyway; good to see British technology at its best!

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