On the month of February 2017, IMT lab researchers of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and team members are deployed to Moorea, an island that is part of the French Polynesian society. Despite the rough start of technical difficulties and hot weather, the team managed to send THOR into the ocean.
Connected by a large umbilical cable from THOR’s handle to the boat, THOR was tugged in a zig-zag route across the ocean, from one point to the next and back to the point. The purpose of THOR is to collect petabytes of data by taking a series of images, sampling the seafloor and the many different organisms that live in this habitat. The collected data will help contribute in future terms of creating maps of the seafloor, in which the oceans cover 70% of the Earth. Overall, the data will help check and maintain the ocean’s environment, contributing to sustainability.