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On a roll

On January 20, 1961, in the midst of the Cold War, the bathyscaphe Trieste rolls down Pennsylvania Avenue in the Inauguration Day parade in Washington, D.C. The float celebrated the brief visit to the Challenger Deep (the deepest known part of the ocean) made by Jacques Piccard and Lieutenant Don Walsh in 1960. Festivities are planned in Washington D.C. again this week to celebrate the 50^th anniversary of the dive. Nereus —a deep-sea robotic vehicle designed and built at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution— will be on display alongside the Trieste in the Navy Yard museum to commemorate its June 2009 expedition to the trench.

(Photo courtesy of U.S. Navy)