The bow of the Titanic, emerging from the dark depths of the Atlantic, is the most famous point of the legendary shipwreck, thanks mainly to the film by James Cameron.

The iconic ocean liner sank in April 1912 and remains at the bottom, broken in two, at a depth of 3,784 meters, gradually disintegrating.

A new expedition to the wreck of the Titanic with underwater robots this summer revealed the effects of the ship’s slow metal corrosion and decay.

A large section of the bow railing – captured by Jack and Rose in the famous film scene – has come off and now lies on the sea floor.

The stunning images show how the wreck is changing after more than 100 years beneath the waves.

The mission believes the section of railing, which is about 4.5 meters long, fell sometime in the past two years.

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“The bow of the Titanic is just iconic, but it’s not like that anymore,” Tomasina Ray, director of collections at RMS Titanic Inc, the company that carried out the expedition, told the BBC.

“It’s just another reminder of the deterioration that happens every day. People keep asking: “How long is the Titanic going to be around? We just don’t know, but we’re watching it in real time,” he said.

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titanic

Also, according to the company, many decorative art objects – sculptures and statues – that adorned the halls and rooms throughout the Titanic, are now disintegrating on the sandy bottom, after many decades immersed in the hostile environment of the North Atlantic.

Since the discovery of the wreck in 1985, thousands of artifacts have been recovered and displayed in museums around the world.