People are only just discovering why no bodies are visible inside the wreckage of the Titanic, despite over 1,500 people dying on board.
RMS Titanic sank on April 15, 1912, on its maiden voyage from Southampton, England, to New York, USA, after it hit an iceberg.
Of the estimated 2,224 passengers and crew on board, approximately 1,500 died due to the lack of lifeboats, making it one of the deadliest peacetime sinkings of a single ship.
Over the years, expeditions have recovered artifacts from the wreckage, which lies over 12,000 feet below sea level, since it was found on September 1, 1985, after decades of searching.
It was discovered that the Titanic had split apart, likely near the surface of the water, before sinking to the seabed, and the bow of the ship had remained more intact, containing interiors which remained surprisingly intact.
A debris field measuring approximately 5x3 miles was also found around the ship, where hundreds of thousands of items were scattered from the ship, including pieces of the vessel, furniture, dinnerware, and personal items belonging to the passengers.
However, very few of the bodies of the people who went down with the ship in the disaster have ever been recovered, despite pairs of shoes and boots being found in the debris field.
No human remains were recovered from inside the remainder of the Titanic's shell, either - so what happened to all the victims?
Well, the reason for this lies in the fact that the wreckage came to rest 12,000 feet down in the Atlantic Ocean.
Most of the human remains and their clothes were consumed by bacteria and sea creatures, leaving only their shoes and boots to show they were once there, as these materials have proved inedible.
Another reason there are no skeletons visible in the debris field is down to the chemical composition of the seawater, which changes the deeper you descend.
Robert Ballard, one of the deep sea explorers who first discovered the wreck in 1985, explained that below certain depths, the water is actually capable of dissolving bones.
He revealed: "The water in the deep sea is under-saturated in calcium carbonate, which is mostly, you know, what bones are made of.
"For example, on the Titanic and on the Bismarck, those ships are below the calcium carbonate compensation depth, so once the critters eat their flesh and expose the bones, the bones dissolve.
"Now in the Black Sea, because there are no critters to eat, the bones should not be exposed. So you should have perfectly mummified fossils."
People shared their thoughts on the matter on Reddit, writing: "that is horrifying," and: "This is so eerie to think about…"
Others added: "The only comfort that I can think of is that those victims were given back to nature the only way Mother Nature knows how."
One commenter wrote: "Whoa, nightmarish. Real stuff usually is, tho," while another added: "Okay, well, that's terrifying."
Since the wreckage was initially discovered, it has been revisited on numerous occasions by explorers and scientists, with many of the items found in the debris field having been recovered for conservation and public display.
Despite many plans, the ship itself has never been able to be recovered, and its condition has deteriorated significantly over the years due to accidental damage from submersibles colliding with it as well as iron-eating bacteria which has been rapidly growing on the hull.
In 2006, scientists estimated that within 50 years the hull and structure of Titanic would eventually collapse entirely, leaving just the more resilient interior fittings among a pile of rust on the sea floor.
Last year, one mission to take tourists to visit the famous wreckage ended in disaster.
The Titan submersible, created by OceanGate, imploded during its descent to the wreckage, claiming the lives of all six men on board, including the company's CEO, Stockton Rush, who'd been piloting the sub.
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