Late Breaking news:  as of 9 pm tonight

At noon, local time (10 p.m. ET),James Cameron ‘s “vertical torpedo” sub broke the surface of the western Pacific, carrying the National Geographic explorer and filmmaker back from theMariana Trench ‘s Challenger Deep—Earth’s deepest, and perhaps most alien, realm.

The first human to reach the 6.8-mile-deep (11-kilometer-deep) undersea valley solo, Cameron arrived at the bottom with the tech to collect scientific data, specimens, and visions unthinkable in 1960, when the only other manned Challenger Deep dive  took place, according to members of the National Geographic expedition.