Photograph by Mark Thiessen, National Geographic The DEEPSEA
CHALLENGER being hoisted by a crane after Monday's Mariana
Trench dive. Photograph by Mark Thiessen, National Geographic.
Updated 11:53 a.m. ET, March 27, 2012 The Mariana Trench's
Challenger Deep—the deepest point on Earth—looks as bleak and
barren as the moon, according to James Cameron, who successfully
returned just hours ago from the first solo dive to the ocean
abyss. At noon, local time Monday (10 p.m. ET Sunday), the
National Geographic explorer and filmmaker's "vertical torpedo"
sub broke the surface of the western Pacific, some 200 miles
(322 kilometers) southwest of Guam. After a descent that took
roughly two and a half hours, Cameron spent about three hours
conducting the first manned scientific exploration of Challenger
Deep. For his return trip, Cameron experienced a faster-than-
expected, roughly 70-minute ascent, which he described as a
"heckuva ride." Bobbing in the open ocean, his custom-designed
sub, the DEEPSEA CHALLENGER, was spo