Stainless steel sculpture dropped in Mariana trench will store DNA for 10,000 years.
Around 11km down, the conditions at the bottom of the Mariana trench, the deepest of its kind in the world, are extreme. The water pressure is 1,000 times greater than at sea level, but life can still be found, with microbial life forms and even some species of fish discovered on the trench floor.
A Danish artist has worked with a team of engineers to create a unique, steel-built, free-standing sculpture that acts as a time capsule and can withstand the pressure of deep-sea conditions.
The team eventually settled on a hermetically sealed, electro polished stainless-steel pipe structure that would guarantee no rust or erosion in the oxygen void of the trench floor, leaving no impact on the local environment.
This nano-engineered stainless steel outer surface means that the sculpture surface does not interact with or contaminate the natural environment while guaranteeing the integrity of the structure that protects its DNA cargo.
The deep-sea sculpture has been designed to act as a DNA storage unit that will function for at least 10,000 years. This artist secured DNA contributions from more than 3,000 people worldwide that will be kept safely within the structure of the second sculpture.
The future may be uncertain, but one thing can be relied upon: the enduring power of steel that made possible this unique monument to human ingenuity.
