A high-tech robotic diving suit will help researchers investigate an ancient shipwreck near Greece that has yielded an object considered to be one of the world's first computers.
The object from the 2nd century B.C., known as the Antikythera Mechanism, is considered a computing device because it was capable of tracking and predicting astronomical events and cycles within our solar system, scientists say.
The device, with numerous bronze gears and cogs, was recovered in 1900 by Greek sponge divers from a wreck off the island of Antikythera in the Aegean Sea.
Now researchers plan to return to the wreck using an Iron Man-like suit complete with thrusters that will allow a diver to spend time at depth without the risk of suffering from decompression sickness, also known as the bends, which can threaten divers using scuba gear to dive to underwater archaeological sites.
Dubbed the Exosuit, the $1.5 million suit will allow the diver to reach the wreck at almost 400 feet down and spend hours examining the site, experts say.
"It's basically a wearable submarine," says Phil Short, a diving expert taking part in the intended mission. "The pressure inside is no different from being in a submarine or in fresh air. We can go straight to the bottom, spend 5 hours there and come straight back to the surface with no decompression."
With almost unlimited ability to remain on the wreck, a researcher can take the time and care necessary to search for more objects, archaeologist Theotokis Theodoulou says.
"I'll be able to grasp, pluck, clench and dig... for several hours," he says.
There are likely to be other precious object still in the wreck, which is thought to have been carrying treasures seized in Asia Minor back to Rome when it sank, the researchers said following exploratory dives in 2012 and 2013.
In addition to the Exosuit, the mission will use robotic mapping equipment and advanced closed-circuit "rebreathers," which will allow even scuba-equipped divers to safely spend as long as a half an hour on the ocean bottom, much longer than previous divers have been able to stay down.
Still, the Exosuit is seen as the best solution for intensive examination of the wreck and its surrounding, mission participants say.
"With the Exosuit, our bottom time becomes virtually unlimited," says Brendan Foley of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts, where the suit underwent trials earlier this month.
