More than a century after the Titanic sank, stunning new research may change what we thought we knew about the world's most famous shipwreck.

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Titanic Sinking New Findings

Digital scans of the wreck, taken 12,500 feet under the Atlantic by deep-sea mapping firm Magellan Ltd, have revealed that the massive ship may have gone down after a mere six-second glancing blow with the iceberg — not the long gash many once imagined.

Instead, the iceberg likely tore several small holes in the hull, each about the size of an A4 sheet of paper, but spread across a long section of the ship. This, researchers say may have slowly flooded six compartments — and subsequently sealed the ship's grim fate.

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Simon Benson, a naval architect at the University of Newcastle explained: "Those small holes are across a long length of the ship".

Speaking to BBC, Benson said, "So the flood water comes in slowly but surely into all of those holes, and then eventually the compartments are flooded over the top and the Titanic sinks".

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New haunting details emerge

The new images have also revealed haunting details, including collapsed boilers which suggest that the engines were still running when the ship plunged into icy waters. A steam valve was left wide open — clear evidence, experts say, that Titanic's engineers were still working to keep power on as the ship sank.

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Those engineers, led by Joseph Bell, stayed at their posts and kept the lights on, allowing hundreds more passengers to escape in lifeboats, while they died in the disaster.

"They held the chaos at bay as long as possible, and all of that was kind of symbolised by this open steam valve just sitting there on the stern," Titanic expert Parks Stephenson told the BBC. 

The scans are part of a new National Geographic documentary, 'Titanic: The Digital Resurrection', which uses detailed scans and simulations to revisit the ship’s final moments.

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The Titanic struck an iceberg just before midnight on April 14, 1912 and sank less than three hours later, killing over 1,000 people out of the 2,224 on board. The wreck wasn't found until 1985, and today it lies in two main pieces — the recognisable bow and the mangled stern — separated by 2,600 feet on the ocean floor. 

(With inputs from agencies)