Robotic submarines have already achieved some pretty impressive feats of submersion, but this new Nereus sub developed by the folks at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution looks set to out-do those in a fairly big way, with it now on track to dive down into all 11,000 meters of the Challenger Deep in the Pacific Ocean. What's more, while the sub can be operated remotely, it also has a fully autonomous mode, which'll let it make use of the on-board chemical sensors, sonar, and digital photography to seek out areas of interest and map out "vast swathes of
