A yellow research submarine named Boaty McBoatface is about to be launched into the watery blue depths of the Southern Ocean off the coast of Chile, according to the BBC.
It's the latest chapter of a saga that began last summer, when the internet was abuzz with the possibility that Britain's National Environment Research Council (NERC) would honor the results of an online poll and name its next ship "Boaty McBoatface." That name was by far the most popular candidate, with 124,100 votes compared to just over 11,000 for the runner-up, "Sir David Attenborough."
To the great disappointment of internet pranksters, however, NERC decided to name the new ship Sir David Attenborough. But the agency wasn't completely deaf to the power of the web: it decided to award the tongue-in-cheek name to the much smaller research submarine, which is currently in Punta Arenas, Chile. In fact, the submarine, which scientists will use to gather climate change data from the world's oceans, is one of three built in the UK that will bear the "Boaty" moniker, according to the BBC.
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"Boaty's a very intelligent underwater system," British Antarctic Survey scientist Mike Meredith told the BBC. "It can sense the environment around it, so it knows the height it is above the seabed and it can map out its trajectory and its position in a very advanced way."
As he and the rest of the research team prepares Boaty for its first mission, internet commenters are caught up in the excitement and aren't hesitating to pat themselves on the back for helping to bring publicity to what might have otherwise been an obscure corner of the science world.
"Had it been given some arbitrary name or number not many people outside of the scientist community would bother reading about what it is doing," one Reddit member wrote. Another member chimed in with a suggestion that the NERC name Boaty's first mission "Freezy McSwimSwim."
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