06/05/09 — A new type of deep-sea robotic vehicle called Nereus has successfully reached the deepest part of the world’s ocean, reports a team of U.S. engineers and scientists aboard the research vessel Kilo Moana. The dive to 10,902 meters (6.8 miles) occurred on May 31, 2009, at the Challenger Deep in the Mariana Trench in the western Pacific Ocean. | The dive makes Nereus the world’s deepest-diving vehicle and the first vehicle to explore the Mariana Trench since 1998. Nereus’s unique hybrid-vehicle design makes it ideally suited to explore the ocean’s last frontiers. The unmanned vehicle is remotely operated by pilots…