NASA Discovers Abandoned Cold War City Under Arctic Ice

Under the Ice

Nasa scientists made a surprising discovery while surveying Greenland’s Arctic ice in April 2024. Their radar instrument on the Gulfstream III aircraft detected an abandoned military base buried under a thick layer of ice.

This base, named Camp Century, was used by the US Army Corps of Engineers from 1959 to 1967. It featured extensive tunnels and was part of a program to test nuclear missile launches from the Arctic.

The recent radar data revealed various structures hidden beneath 100 feet of ice accumulated over the past 56 years. “We didn’t know what it was at first,” said Alex Gardner, a cryospheric scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

Unexpected Discovery

Nasa utilized the UAVSAR radar system, attached to the aircraft, to gather this information. “We can see the individual structures in the city like never before,” stated Chad Greene, a NASA scientist aboard the flight.

The scientists are analyzing these maps to predict when the camp might re-emerge due to melting ice, accelerated by climate change. Some experts believe that the site could become visible by the end of the century. This could potentially expose radioactive waste and chemicals that could leak into the environment.

The team’s primary mission focused on studying climate change effects in the Arctic. Greene noted that understanding ice thickness is crucial to predicting how ice sheets will react to warming oceans and air, impacting sea level rise.

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