For more than a century, the famed exploration vessel Endurance lay trapped in the Antarctic, entombed in the depths of one of world's most remote seas. For the first time, explorers have discovered Ernest Shackleton's sunken ship, less than five miles from its last reported location in 1915, they announced today.



When the world's first watery images of the ship (pictured above) emerged on Saturday, "it was like my whole life funneled down to an instant," says Mensun Bound, a leader of the expedition. A day later, a remote undersea camera showed the stern of the remarkably preserved British polar vessel, the brass letters of the word "Endurance" clearly visible. "I could feel the breath of Shackleton on my back,"