An oceanographer, often known as “Deep-Sea Dawn” has gone where no other Black person has ever gone before.

At 61, Dawn Wright descended to the planet’s deepest point to bring back the primary high-resolution mapping of Challenger Deep. Wright, a specialist in marine geology and geography on the Environmental Systems Research Institute is the twenty seventh person to travel to the Challenger Deep. The fifth woman overall. 

Wright, who grew up in Maui, Hawaii told CBS News, the dream to change into an oceanographer stemmed from the Apollo 11 Mission. “If those men could land on the moon, I assumed, ‘Why can’t I’m going the wrong way and explore the oceans?’” she told the outlet. 

As expected Wright struggled in her profession throughout the 70s and 80s as there weren’t many ladies oceanographers, and even less who were Black. 

“I spent several years at sea as a marine technician. And there have been men on the ship that I used to be on who didn’t consider that girls must be there,”she told CBS. “That’s the story, an age-old story. It’s still a problem.” 

The primary trip into the Challenger Deep was greater than 50 years ago. In response to National Geographic, in 1960, Jacques Piccard and Navy Lt. Don Walsh reached this location in a U.S. Navy submersible called the Trieste. The descent was five hours and the duo spent only a scant 20 minutes at the underside. They were unable to capture images because the ocean floor was too cloudy. 

In 2022, after 10 hours on the planet’s deepest point, Wright returned to land with images. Because of the side-scan sonar, Wright accomplished her task to bring back the primary high-resolution mapping of Challenger Deep. Currently, lower than 1 / 4 of the worldwide seafloor is mapped “to sufficient detail,” Wright said. 

Last 12 months, the United Nations pledged to vary that and set a goal to have at the least 80 percent of the seabed mapped by 2030.