In context: Greenland hosts the second-largest physique of ice on the earth. Throughout the Chilly Struggle, the US Military needed to make use of this glacier to cover a nuclear base that might shortly strike the Soviet Union within the occasion of a nuclear battle. The bottom can nonetheless be seen in nice element utilizing NASA’s newest penetrating radar know-how.
NASA carried out a scientific mission earlier this 12 months, surveying Greenland’s large ice sheet to check the bounds and capabilities of its Uninhabited Aerial Automobile Artificial Aperture Radar (UAVSAR) know-how. The company did not count on to “see” something attention-grabbing down there, but they rediscovered a long-abandoned base constructed by the US through the Chilly Struggle.
The UAVSAR know-how is an imaging radar instrument designed to gather measurements of Earth’s deformation. In April 2024, NASA deployed the gadget on a Gulfstream III plane flying over Greenland’s territory. The US house company deliberate to calibrate, validate, and check the gadget, drawing new maps of the ice sheet’s inside layers right down to the stable bedrock.
Throughout the check, NASA researchers obtained an unprecedented view of a former US base often called Camp Century. The key website hosted a Chilly Struggle program often called Venture Iceworm, which deliberate to construct 2,500 miles of “underground” tunnels to cover nuclear ballistic missiles. These modified “Iceman” missiles have been designed to launch by the ice sheet, placing wise targets inside Soviet Union territory.
The US Military selected Greenland for Venture Iceworm due to the nation’s proximity to Russia. Building on Camp Century started in 1959 however was deserted in 1967 as a result of the tunnels confronted the fixed menace of shifting ice. Earlier than abandoning the challenge, Washington deliberate to cover 600 nuclear missiles 100 ft under the icy floor.
NASA rediscovered Camp Century base by modifications within the ice. The April 2024 mission helped verify that the UAVSAR know-how can successfully measure Earth’s floor. The key “metropolis below the ice” had beforehand been surveyed by different airborne missions. Nonetheless, UAVSAR detected particular person constructions within the base that had by no means been seen earlier than.
Greenhouse emissions and world warming are shortly melting Greenland’s ice sheet, and scientists estimate that the glacial formation will seemingly disappear solely inside 10,000 years. Hundreds of thousands of cubic kilometers of water shall be misplaced, and the polluting supplies hidden underground at Camp Century may take generations to scrub up.