Amelia Earhart is a woman who has made history by being the first female aviator and being the second person to fly solo over the Atlantic. But..why bring her up now? Well, after nearly nine decades, we may have possibly found her plane (or what was left of it) in the Pacific Ocean. Using sonar imaging, Deep Sea Vision, a team of underwater archaeologists, estimate that Earhart’s wreckage lies on the ocean floor, about 5,000 meters (16,400ft) beneath the surface from Howland Island. There are some troubles concerning retrieving and finding the plane due to the sheer size of the Pacific in comparison to the size of Earhart’s plane. Finding it will prove challenging, and that’s not even considering if it were broken down into pieces. With that being said, we will have to wait for further updates about an upcoming journey to the ocean floor in hopes of retrieving the plane.

While the potential of this mystery being solved seems like a reliever, it brings up many, many more questions. One such question is why have we searched ceaselessly for this plane? Why has it taken us so long? Perhaps it’s because of all the conspiracy theories that tend to follow her name and the disappearance of her plane. Whether or not she crashed and sunk her plane, died a castaway, was taken prisoner by the Japanese, or was actually a spy, discovering her plane is the first step leading us towards preserving the history of this nine-decade long mystery for future generations.